The Second Secret
by RWBYBlackFlames
Summary: What if Jaune had a second secret, a secret leagues more important than faked transcripts? ARC 1: COMPLETE
1. The Fallen Leaf

Hey Guys, this is a new story I'm trying out, I hope you like it. Also, I'll be postponing all my other stories except Alternate until further notice.**Black Flames** out!

=O=

**Chapter One:**

**The Fallen Leaf**

"_The monsters aren't always the creatures of Grimm. Sometimes you have to look past the masks of humanity to find the true monsters." ~Mingzhi Nanren, Ancient Vacou Philosopher_

=O=

If you looked at Jaune, he'd seem like a pretty upbeat person, a man who looked like he couldn't hate a thing in the world. He looked like he'd love to be best friends with everything. There was, however, a few things that Jaune disliked with a passion.

One was heights, something he never liked and turned into a hate/fear relationship after being thrown off of a cliff in a training exercise. Another was dust powered vehicles, he didn't trust those things for a second, knowing dust's deadly power, as well as his motion sickness. With those on his mind, there was one question on Jaune's mind.

'HOW DID OZPIN TRICK ME ONTO GETTING ONTO THIS DEATHTRAP!' thought Jaune as he tried to control his stomach as he flew on the one thing he truly hated, a Dust-Plane. He was even unlucky enough to somehow manage to find one with a beautiful aerial view of the ground, reminding him where he was.

'Alright Jaune, just control your stomach, you are an Arc! The latest descendent of Julius! You will not fall victim to a metal nevermore! I only have to-' and so Jaune inner speech was cut short as his stomach won it's rebellion against the plane and his body.

'Shoot shoot shoot, I'm gonna-' thought Jaune as his stomach finally reintroduced his breakfast to the world, and more specifically to a poor blondes shoes. He would have to apologize, but later as he didn't want more unnecessary casualties in the war against his stomach.

Fortunately for him, the trashcan was very close to the blonde that he puked on, the bright side was there would be no more casualties, the bad was that it was literally right next to the window, only worsening his stomach ailment.

'Ugh... when I get my hands on Ozpin for convincing me to get on this plane, I'm gonna-'

[WE ARE NEARING BEACON ACADEMY AND WE WILL BE LANDING IN 15 MINUTES] said the intercom as it sounded above him.

'At least it isn't all bad news...' thought Jaune as he waited out the longest 15 minutes of his life.

=O=

[WELCOME TO BEACON ACADEMY] announced the intercom, signalling the end of his quarter hour of hell.

'Oh thank Monty...' thought Jaune as he got off the flying deathtrap and back onto the sweet sweet earth, where you don't have to worry about falling to your death. He drank some water to clear his mouth of the vile contents it had just finished expelling, and took a look around.

"Wow..." It wasn't called Beacon for nothing, especially with the giant tower in the middle of it, and the place itself was incredible, it resembled a higher class of living, it certainly deserved the title of the highest and best Hunters Academy.

Jaune then decided that now was the time for a quick checklist, to make sure that he didn't forget something, as it would be quite embarrassing to go in for a fight and realize you forgot your sword somewhere.

Armor... Check

Jaune looked at it and was still proud of it's design and sleekness, how he was unrestricted in movement and was protected from most attacks, a good gift from his sister Verta.

Crocea Mors... Check

A quick pull and the longsword was in his hand, ready for all the basics, including and not limited to slashing, stabbing, cutting and skewering, and his 'sheath' ready to protect him in a moments notice with it's shield form. Indestructible, and his great great grandfathers gift to him, a worthy weapon for justice.

Luggage... Check?

As he looked through, he noticed that everything was in order, except he lacked something. His wonderful sisters that could do no wrong forgot to pack him any sleepwear except for his onesie, not that anything was wrong with it, as the onesie was the best, but it wasn't the best in terms of reputation with the bunnies all over it, along with the slippers... Ah well, his blessed cousin gave it to him, might as well use it.

And Reputation... Absolutely demolished

Jaune noticed that everyone was walking around and away from him as if he was the Grimm... Eh, he DID throw up on a poor girls shoes before making it to a trashcan as well as he was talking to himself... He really needs to stop doing that.

Now, there was only one thing left to do, and that was- *BANG* Jaune's inner thoughts were cut off as he heard, and felt an explosion come from nearby.

"What the-" said Jaune as he looked over just in time to see the wonders of ice, lightning and fire combine as well as a few other elements to perform an awe inspiring explosion. And in the middle as the smoke cleared, a small red haired girl clothed in red, as well as a small white haired girl clothed in white. Hopefully they're alright.

"This is exactly what I was talking about!" said White angrily, yep they were okay. Okay enough to argue after the explosion of the elements.

"I'm really really sorry!" said Red.

"Ugh! You complete dolt! What are you even doing here? Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?" said White angrily, signaling Jaune with his 'hero' instincts to solve the problem before it escalated. He's seen two angry woman fighting before, it did not end well for anyone. Last he checked, they were still cleaning up the mess in the castle.

"Easy there, let's not get too worked up over this, let's all calm down and think about this. Do you really want to argue over this or do you want to act like an adult and forgive each other?" asked Jaune, trying to die down the situation. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

"Do you know who your talking to?" asked White, directing her fury at Jaune. This was definitely not the course Jaune thought that this conversation. And as Jaune drew a blank on the name, a black haired angel decided to save him, holding a dust vial that seemed to survive the explosion.

"She's the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, Weiss Schnee, which is the world's biggest dust supplier." said the black haired lady.

"Finally, some recognition!" said Weiss smugly.

"The same company infamous for its controversial labor force and questionable business partners." said the Black bluntly.

"How dare- The nerve of- Ugh!" said Weiss as she stormed off, but not before snatching the vial out of Black's hands. Jaune then turned to Black, only to see her glare at him for a couple seconds, before leaving as well. A groan alerted him of the small red girl in the center of a crater.

"...Welcome to Beacon..." said Red, who looked depressed over the last five minutes. As she looked, she saw that at least one of the people that defended her stayed nearby.

"That could've ended better..." said Jaune more or less to himself as he helped Red out of the crater.

"Thanks, I'm Ruby, Ruby Rose." said Ruby as they started to walk around, in no real direction. Now was the time for new friends!

"I'm Jaune Arc. Short Sweet and the ladies love it." said Jaune.

"Weren't you the one who threw up on the ship?" asked Ruby, to which he retorted.

"Didn't you just explode five minutes ago?"

=O=

They two had been walking for a while, and they had discussed various topics, such as their 'wonderful' older sisters, their favorite foods, and now they were approaching a new one, weaponry.

"So... I got this!" said Ruby as she pulled out her weapon, and it transformed from a small box into a scythe that looked bigger than she was, in a combination of red, black and silver. One thing that confused Jaune was how a small girl could wield such a big heavy scythe.

"Woah... Nice!" said Jaune, this was his first experience with a transforming weapon, and this definitely was more impressive than a plain old mace or bow.

"It's also a customizable high velocity impact sniper rifle!" said Ruby.

"I didn't know you were such a weapons fanatic Crater-Face! Where did you get that?" said Jaune.

"If you must know Vomit-Boy, I created it myself, all students at Signal make their own weapons! Didn't you make yours?" asked Ruby, curious. He hadn't pulled out his weapon yet, and she was definitely curious.

"Nope, it's a family heirloom, my great great grandfather used this in the Great War 125 years ago. But do you want to know what it can do?" asked Jaune, baiting her in.

"Yes!" said Ruby, and Jaune prepared to wow her.

"This sword, this amazing sword can do the most impressive thing ever! It can cut, stab and slash!" said Jaune, and smiled as he saw Ruby's eagerness disappear into disappointment.

"You could've said it was a normal sword..." said Ruby as she pouted.

"Eh, that would've been boring, but I do have something special. My sheave can turn into a shield, and if my G.G. Grandfather can be believed, my shield will never be broken through, or be even scratched by that manner, and my sword can never be dulled, as well as it's ability to cut through anything. The Absolute Sword and the Absolute Shield." said Jaune.

"Really!? What's it made out of?" asked Ruby, eager to know of the seemingly invincible metal.

"If I knew, I'd tell you Ruby. No one alive in my family knows what it's made out of. Last time we checked, not even a diamond drill could even scratch it." said Jaune.

"Well then, I-" Ruby was cut off as a intercom above her head went off.

[ATTENTION FIRST YEARS, HEADMASTER OZPIN'S SPEECH WILL BEGIN IN 20 MINUTES AT THE AUDITORIUM]

There was silence as Jaune and Ruby took in the message. Finally, Jaune had the guts to ask the question that neither of them knew the answer to.

"Where's the Auditorium?"

=O=

Finally, after 15 minutes and 3 teachers, they managed to find the auditorium. Just in time as well, as almost immediately after getting inside the auditorium, Professor Ozpin began his speech, but not before Ruby managed to find her sister, whom after the speech he will apologize to for vomiting all over her shoes.

"Ahem... I'll keep this brief. You have travel here today in search of knowledge. To hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look among you and all I see is wasted energy, in need of a purpose, direction. You will assume that knowledge will free you off this, but your time here at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step." and so the Headmaster departed, leaving the students with his rather odd message, and so Professor Goodwitch stepped up.

"You will gather in the ballroom tonight, tomorrow your initiation begins. Be ready, you are dismissed." said the Professor Goodwitch, before following the Headmaster. The students then started to depart, and explore the school, or as far as they could go. Jaune then took this time to do what he should've done a long time ago.

"Hey!" said Jaune, gathering Yang's attention.

"Yes?" asked Yang, turning from Ruby, whom she was speaking with.

"I nearly forgot, I'm sorry for puking onto your shoes, I get motion sickness easy, and that metal deathtrap definitely didn't help." said Jaune.

"It's alright, I'll be fine... ugh, what's your name?" asked Yang, to which Ruby answered.

"Yang, this is my new friend Jaune. Jaune, this is my older sister Yang." said Ruby, introducing the two.

"Nice to meet you Jaune." said Yang, shaking Jaune's hand with a very strong grip. This was someone he shouldn't mess with.

"Likewise, now I'm gonna attempt to find the ballroom now, as the sooner I go, the better. I have a terrible sense of direction, and Ruby can confirm this." said Jaune.

"Alright then, I guess I'll see you later." said Yang as Jaune walked off. Before Jaune left though, he felt at unease, as if someone was watching him, like a tiger hunting for it's next meal. Jaune shook it off and prepared his next great journey to the ballroom.

=O=

Jaune had managed to set a new record for himself, as within an hour, he was in the ballroom and was unpacking his things, before he saw two things of interest. One: His wonderful Sisters packed him no sleepware, except his onesie. It MAY be a tad bit embarrassing, but it's too comfy to get mad about. And two, the black haired lady from before had set up nearby and was reading a book. Might as well introduce himself.

"Hey, I'm Jaune. I noticed that you helped my friend out earlier when she was attacked by the Ice Queen, and I got to thank you, I'm not sure I could've handled that well alone. So thanks!" said Jaune.

"It's no problem, I'm Blake." said Blake as she looked at him, and after a couple seconds she looked a little surprise, but managed to hide it and Jaune didn't notice.

"So... what are you reading?" asked Jaune.

"It's a book about a man with two souls, each fighting over control of his body. I'll let you guess what the name is." said Blake, to which Jaune laughed at his luck.

"Is it 'The Twin King' by Jekiru Haido?" asked Jaune, knowing the answer already.

"How did you know?" asked Blake.

"You can say that I had a fairly boring childhood, so I decided that I might as well as read a few books to pass the time, turns out I loved reading. They could transport you to a new world of new ideals and new truths. This was one of my fathers favorite books, and it's one of mine as well. But I do have a question for you." said Jaune.

"I agree completely, I read books as they could give a new set of rules, and a more ideal world, and what's your question?" asked Blake.

"Quel est le secret da la seconde?" asked Jaune as his voice hardened from his previous happy, go lucky attitude to one of complete seriousness.

"La connaissance de la troisième." said Blake unwavering, to which Jaune laughed.

"You'll be a good friend Blake for the upcoming year." said Jaune as he walked off back to his area.

"Likewise Jaune."

=O=

The night had gone rather quiet, as other than the Ice Queen attacking Ruby again, there was really nothing note worthy. Jaune woke up, and proceeded to the breakfast hall, following the crowd that left early. Ten minutes later, and he was eating pancakes, the food of the heavens. Nothing could ruin this, not a thing in the world...

"Hey! Do you mind if we sit here? Ooh you're eating pancakes as well! I love pancakes and-" said an overactive orange haired girl before her friend cut her off. Again, not even this could ruin the happiness that sweets brought him.

"Sure, I don't mind, especially if you have the king of breakfasts with you as well." said Jaune.

"Okay! I'm Nora, and this is my bestest friend ever, Ren. I love pancakes! Ren, we're gonna be partners with this person, right? I can't allow a lowly cereal team to have a true pancake lover!" said Nora excitedly.

"If you can figure out how to determine how the teams are going to be formed, then sure." said Jaune as he ate another pancake.

"Ooh Ren, do you think that they'll..." Jaune stopped paying attention, as he felt the predatory grin from earlier again, this was causing Jaune unease. He needed to figure out who was giving him that glare and why. After pancakes of course, nothing goes before pancakes.

"...so we can do sloth sounds, and we can team up that way, or maybe we can bribe the headmaster... no that won't work, he owns the school. Oh wait, we can-" said Nora before Jaune cut her off.

"I'm going to be taking my leave for the locker rooms, good luck on the team Nora! And some good advice, everybody loves coffee if your on the bribing idea." said Jaune as he cleaned his mess and left for the locker rooms.

"Okay Pancake-Buddy! So Ren, maybe we can..."

=O=

As Jaune prepared his gear, he noticed laughing. Of the evil variety. Not dissimilar to the laugh of the Mad King of his favorite show, X-Ray and Vav. He looked over and saw that Weiss and a redhead were conversing and Weiss was giving off an evil aura, as if her master plans were coming together, likely she was trying to team with the woman. There was only one thing to do at a time like this.

"Hey Snow Angel, I couldn't help but notice that you want to team with the best of the best. No worries, he's right here." said Jaune. Normally, he'd never get so narcissistic, but when it came to messing with people, the gloves came off.

"Oh great, it's you..." said Weiss.

"It is great, isn't it. Now, I'm thinking that you and me should team, I think that we would be a great team." said Jaune, smiling at the sight of a very upset Weiss.

"Teams are composed of four people." said the Redhead behind Weiss. He nearly hit himself for being as rude to not introduce himself.

"Really, that's good to here... Uh, what's your name?" asked Jaune.

"Do you really not know who this is?" asked Weiss, seemingly getting more upset by the second, and this time he wasn't even trying. It couldn't be any easier, and he loved it.

"Nope. Not a single clue. No bells ringing up here." said Jaune.

"This is Pyrrha Nikos!" said Weiss.

"No idea who that is." said Jaune.

"She graduated at the top of her class" said Weiss.

"Still not ringing and bells and congrats Pyrrha." said Jaune.

"Four time winner of the Mistral Regional Tournament, a new record might I add." said Weiss, confident that the block head would know who she was.

"I can't say I know what that is, but congrats again Pyrrha!" said Jaune.

"She's on the front of every Pumpkin Pete's box!" said Weiss angrily, to which Jaune had to hold himself back from laughing in her face.

"Not. A. Clue. But I'll assume that that's important, so congrats a third time Pyrrha."

"Ugh, your so infuriating you simpleton! Anyway, do you think your worthy of teaming up with either of us?" asked Weiss, which pushed a few of Jaune's buttons.

"You know, I'm a bit tired of the 'I'm too good for everyone attitude.' Let me tell you two things Weiss. One: I couldn't care less about Weiss Schnee of the Schnee Dust Company, or Pyrrha Nikos the champion. What I care about is the Weiss Schnee of Beacon Academy, and the Pyrrha Nikos of Beacon Academy. Two: Can names and titles save you from a Deathstalker? They are only good for bragging. It was nice meeting you Pyrrha, and I hope you take my words to heart Weiss." said Jaune as he walked off towards the cliff.

=O=

Jaune arrived early to the cliff and saw that Professor Goodwitch and Headmaster Ozpin were already there, to which Jaune smiled.

"Hello Headmaster Ozpin, how are you?" asked Jaune.

"I'm fine Jaune, I didn't think that you would make an appearance this year, how did you escape your sisters?" asked Ozpin.

"I had to sneak out and catch the first dust-plane to Vale a few nights ago, and let me tell you, I've found something I can actually hate." said Jaune.

"Motion Sickness?" asked Ozpin.

"120%, we were not born to fly, and definitely not on a giant metal Nevermore." said Jaune, to which the Headmaster laughed.

"Ah Jaune, you never cease to amuse me. You should get on the metal plates now, as the other students are coming, you don't want to give them the wrong idea, right?" said Ozpin.

"Okay then..." said Jaune. Soon, all the students of Group A* had arrived.

"For years, you have trained to become warriors and today your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." said Ozpin.

"Now I'm sure that many of you have heard of the rumors about the assignment of teams. Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates today." said Professor Goodwitch.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone whom you can work well with. That being said, the first person you make eye-contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years." said Ozpin, and next to him, he could hear Ruby freaking out. It shouldn't be too bad, as long as she isn't paired up with Weiss, that would just be a combo he wouldn't see working out, at least for a while.

"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way, so not hesitate to destroy everything in your path or you will die. You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. We will guard that item and as well as your standing and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?" said Ozpin, and Jaune had a horrible feeling in the pit of his gut.

"Yes I have a-" said Jaune.

"Good, now take up your positions." said Ozpin, cutting off Jaune.

"I have a question, how will we be going down?" asked Jaune hopefully as he heard the students near him be launched.

"You will fall, after we fling you via the launch pad you are on." said Ozpin bluntly.

"I'm assuming that there was no parachutes." said Jaune, already knowing the answer.

"You would assume correctly Mr. Arc." said Ozpin with a barely noticeable smile on his face, the psychopath...

"One more question. Do you hold grudges?" asked Jaune as the launchings got near.

"Yes I do Mr. Arc." was the last thing that Jaune heard before he flew, ungracefully and uncoordinated. There was only one thing on his mind.

"WHY ME?!"

=O=

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and I hope you enjoyed Chapter One of this story, I'll try to make this once a week minimum so I hope you like it! Black Flames out!


	2. The Power Within

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here. I'm glad that you guys liked the first chapter and some of you even decided to learn what Jaune and Blake said, it'll make sense later. But now, now is the time for Chapter 2...

=O=

**Chapter 2:**

**The Power Within**

_"If you win, you live. If you lose, you die. If you don't fight, you can't win! Fight! Fight!" ~Eren Jaeger, Ancient Vytallian Commander._

=O=

As Jaune flew towards his likely grave, a few thoughts went by in his head. Such as what he had done to aggravate Lord Monty to such an extent, and why he did it, because he definitely did something to upset Monty to such an extent for him to be catapulting to his death by a deranged headmaster. Speaking of which...

"OZPIN WHY!?" shouted Jaune as he flew, knowing full well that the words would probably not reach the headmaster. Jaune then prayed to the heavens and Monty himself for one thing, for one of his angels to save him or for him to unlock his semblance... or aura for that matter. Apparently his prayers were answered as a spear came flying at him, at high speeds, pinning him to the nearest tree.

"THANK YOU!" yelled Jaune to the heavens.

"I'M SORRY!" yelled somebody far away, and it seemed to Jaune that he lucked out. Now there was only one thing to do. Get a partner, find a relic, get back to the cliff, throttle Ozpin. As Jaune lay hanging, he saw someone below him, and it turned out to be none other than an angry Weiss Schnee, which was also known to Beacon as a normal Weiss Schnee.

"Hey Weiss, how's it hanging?" asked Jaune with a smirk on his face. Weiss just looked at him for all of two seconds before turning around and heading back into the bushes.

"You came back!" yelled what Jaune presumed to be Ruby happily. Now that there was no one else and nothing else to do, Jaune did the only thing reasonable for a man hanging onto a spear via his hoodie would do. He tried yanking the spear out, but it was stuck in there pretty deep.

"Come on... Let go... I don't have all day spear!" said Jaune as he yanked again and again.

"Aha! AAH!" said Jaune as he pulled the spear out, and promptly fell down a good 20 feet onto the ground. He looked around and saw that nothing was nearby and decided to head towards the direction the spear was thrown, to find his savior and hopefully soon to be partner.

"I wonder where the temple is..." said Jaune as he walked through the dense forestry of the Emerald Forest, which led to another thought. 'Why is this forest even called the Emerald Forest, it isn't all the beautiful, and I don't see any Emeralds...' Jaune's inner thoughts were cut off as he found the first living thing in the forest.

"Heh heh... I don't suppose you know where the Temple is..." said Jaune to the Ursa that was right in front of him.

=O=

As the two professors stood on the cliff, awaiting the students inevitable return, Glynda Goodwitch had one question on her mind.

"Mr. Ozpin, I have a question, well two if I'm being perfectly honest." said Glynda.

"And what would they be?" asked the headmaster without even looking away from the forest.

"My first question is why do you send students off into the forest like this every year, instead of something more logical like a tournament or just pairing them yourself, and I don't want any more of the 'it's tradition' or 'don't fix what's not broken' excuses." said Glynda, and Ozpin turned her and looked her in the eyes.

"If you want the truth, it's something you should already know. In this line of work, there is no set way to kill a Grimm, there is also no 'normal' mission. When I launch these students off the cliff at very high speeds, think of it as a test, if this is the line of work they want as this is one of the most challenging things most of them have ever faced. Only when they know that they are prepared for this, they can succeed." said Ozpin in a monotone voice.

"Wow... that was-" said Glynda before getting cut off.

"I also do this for the laughs when I see their face before they're launched, like Jaune for example." said Ozpin with a small chuckle.

"Why am I not surprised... That brings me to my second question, if I may ask. Who is Jaune Arc, or any of his sisters so to speak? When I went to check the transcripts a couple weeks ago, there was a small problem. All the students that have applied have something on there, for example Ms. Belladonna has little, but there was something! Jaune, or any of the Arcs so to speak, had next to nothing on their transcripts, only their name and their weapon and other small details! This has happened before, where a person had little on the transcripts but still managed to get in and pass with flying colors, but this is not a coincidence that ALL the Arcs have nothing. Yet you let them attend this prestigious school anyway, that only the best of the best can go to for some mysterious reason. So let me ask again Headmaster, who is Jaune Arc?" asked Glynda in a slightly upset tone, as she hated it when secrets were kept from her. To that, Ozpin looked into the forest again before speaking.

"Glynda, I'm sorry but that's not something I can tell you right now. If it makes you feel any better, I personally invited Jaune, and his sisters to attend during their respective times, similar to Ms. Rose. However, I know why their sheets are blank, but it's not my secret to tell, and I won't allow you to force them to answer you either. However, it'll all make sense soon..." said Ozpin as he went back to looking over the forest.

=O=

As the Grimm got closer, Jaune sighed as he had to fight now. With his sword in one hand, and the spear that saved him in the other, he prepared himself for battle. That is, until fate decided to reward him for lasting this far.

Suddenly, out from behind him, a red headed woman comes in, yanking the spear out of his hand before relocating it into where the Ursa's heart should be, before turning around to him and smiled as the Ursa collapsed.

"I could've handled that Pyrrha..." grumbled Jaune as he looked at Pyrrha.

"I'm sure you could've, and I suppose this makes us partners." said Pyrrha.

"I'm guessing that since you handled the spear so well, that it's yours, and in that sense, you're the one who nailed me to a tree." said Jaune, to which Pyrrha sheepishly grinned.

"Sorry, I didn't think you had a landing strategy, so I stepped in to help..." said Pyrrha as she rubbed the back of her head out of embarrassment. The next thing that Jaune did surprised Pyrrha.

"Thanks Pyrrha! I'm horrible with heights, it's a fear that I've been trying to overcome for a while, after a small history of falling off cliffs." said Jaune as they started to walk.

"Small?" asked Pyrrha.

"By small, I mean that I fell for a straight 30 seconds before I saved myself. I probably wouldn't have done so well if you let me fall, so thanks! I guess you are worthy of being a champion of that one tournament with such good aim as well as how you destroyed that poor Ursa..." said Jaune.

"It's no problem Jaune, I'm just glad we're all in one piece." said Pyrrha.

"Alrighty then, let's go find the temple and get ourselves a relic so we can get out of here and pass the initiation with flying colors!" said Jaune enthusiastically with a fist raised to the sky, to which Pyrrha smiled and took the lead.

=O=

As they were walking towards what they hoped was the temple, they had decided to have some small talk, as the Grimm decided to leave them alone for the time being.

"So, Pyrrha... How's Vytal treating you? I know that you're from, what I assume to be Mistral considering you won their tournament a few times, so this must be a new experience for you." asked Jaune.

"It's a bit cooler here than it was in Mistral, but it's nothing to complain about. The only thing I have to worry about is how bad the winters are..." said Pyrrha.

"I wouldn't know, as I'm not from here either, but I think they won't be too bad. The winters from where I'm from are brutal, and so are the summers. It snows in summer there, I'd imagine it's not a place you'd like." said Jaune.

"Maybe if I had a layer... or twenty I'd be alright, but if it really is so cold their, how are you doing?" asked Pyrrha.

"If I have to be honest, I feel like an omelet, but as you said, I'll get accustomed to it eventually." said Jaune, and as Jaune said that Pyrrha passed through a thick bit of shrubbery and sent a branch back towards the blonde. Said blonde was not paying attention, and he got a nasty smack on his face for his lack of awareness.

"Ow... that hurt a bit..." said Jaune as he rubbed his cheek.

"Sorry! It's my fault that that happened!" said Pyrrha as she rushed out more apologies, before she noticed something.

"Jaune, why isn't your aura healing that cut on your cheek?" asked Pyrrha curiously.

"Oh, that's because I haven't figured out how to unlock my aura. I've tried to do it before, but I've never done it successfully. It's shown" said Jaune.

"Really, that's strange... Perhaps you were missing something when you where preparing last time." said Pyrrha.

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I'd love it if you did!" said Jaune.

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality, through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul and by my shoulder I protect thee." said Pyrrha. As she said that, her dark colored aura came out, and Jaune's aura came out. What shocked her was that it wasn't a pure color. It was white, which was rare, and scattered around were small black dots. Before Pyrrha could look at it, it started to die down, and the process was over.

"Is it over?" asked Jaune as their aura's died down, and his cut from before healed itself.

"Yes Jaune... it's over..." said an exhausted Pyrrha, and as she said that, she buckled down for a moment before catching herself.

"Pyrrha! Are you okay?" asked Jaune worried.

"Yes, I'll be alright, thank you for your concerns. It takes a lot to unlock someones aura, with size of the aura deciding how much aura it would take, and you have a lot of aura. Let's put it to good use and find that temple..." said Pyrrha.

"Alright, hopefully we'll find it before something else finds us..." said Jaune as they walked through the forest.

=O=

Soon, they arrived at a clearing, next to the cliffside with a cave in it. At this point, Jaune and Pyrrha had looked at the same trees 20 times of more, and even a Beowolf would've been extremely interesting to them.

"You think this is the temple?" asked Pyrrha, as she looked around the cave and saw the drawings on the wall.

"Only one way to find out, and this'll be better then looking around aimlessly!" said Jaune. At a later point, Jaune would say that if they had stumbled upon it sooner, they probably wouldn't have gone in as it was a bad call. Unfortunately, Jaune's semblance wasn't time travel.

"Okay then, I have a torch, let's do this!" said Jaune as he held his torch proudly.

"...Where did you get that?" asked Pyrrha, rather curious.

"Well, when you live in a land that's eternally snow, you learn how to make fire rather quickly." said Jaune.

"Fair point" said Pyrrha as they explored deeper into the cave. Soon, they stumbled, quite literally into a small clearing in the cave with a glowing object floating in the middle. Unfortunately, due to the stumbling, Jaune lost his torch to the small puddles in the cave.

"Pyrrha... Do you think that this is it?" asked Jaune.

"It looks like a relic to me... But I'd exercise caution Jaune..." said Pyrrha. Jaune slowly went up to the object, so slow that it appeared at some points he wasn't even breathing. Eventually, he was right next to it. Suddenly, he grabbed it and tried to pull it away.

"What the-" and the glowing object lowered itself low enough that Jaune could see his mistake. He was grabbing onto a death stalkers tail.

"Aw crap..." said Jaune before his life became hell again.

=O=

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames **here and I hope you enjoyed Chapter 2 of The Second Secret. Sorry for it being short, finals is coming up and I wanted to put something up whilst I studied and prepared for hell. I hope you enjoyed and be prepared for soon, a secret will be revealed! Black Flames out!


	3. The Grimm Monoliths

Hey Guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here! Sorry for the last chapter and this chapter being shorter than the first, I really can't right the canon things that well, and it's rather annoying. But don't fret, starting next chapter, we'll be back at 4K chapters! Enjoy!

=O=

**Chapter 3**

**The Grimm Monoliths**

_'Those who shoot must be prepared to be shot!' ~Lelouch Lamprouge, First Vytallian Emporer._

=O=

As Jaune flew through the air, he questioned a few things. Such as why he was so unlucky that he was cursed to being flung through the air every five minutes, how badly was this going to hurt, and other things. As soon as this initiation was over, he was going to make a few hundred sacrifices to Monty to allow him to stay on the ground, where he belonged. Speaking of initation...

"WATCH OUT!" said a voice from above. Was this Monty warning him of-

"WHY ME?" said Jaune as a red mass crashed into him from above, landing them both on the ground, with some more in tune with the Earth then others. Perhaps he should've looked up and not questioned the universe and avoided the whole crashing thing.

"Jaune! I am so so so sorry!" said Ruby as she noticed who she crashed into.

"Ow... it's alright, I'm sure it was an accident. But before anything else, can you do me a favor Ruby?" asked Jaune.

"Sure, what do you need?" asked Ruby.

"Can you get off of me?" asked Jaune, who was still trapped under Ruby.

"Oh, sorry, heh..." said Ruby as she got off Jaune and then proceeded to help the aforementioned blonde up.

"Ruby... why were you flying from the sky and crashing into me?" asked Jaune in a tired manor.

"I was on a Nevermore... flying above the forest to see where the relics are... with my partner... I saw the temple and jumped down... and I landed on you!" said Ruby, to which Jaune turned around and saw that they were indeed at the 'temple' with the relics, to which Yang and Blake had already arrived, and Yang was running over to them to see if they were alright.

"Ruby! Are you okay?" asked Yang in a worried tone.

"I'm fine Yang, I can take care of myself. A little fall won't hurt me!" said Ruby.

"Especially with a 'Jaune Landing Pillow' cushioning her fall" said Jaune, to which Yang laughed and Ruby disapproved.

"So Jaune, how did you get here?" asked Ruby.

"Well..." started Jaune before he was cut off as Pyrrha ran through the bushes with the angered Deathstalker chasing her. As soon as they arrived in the clearing, Pyrrha turned around and opened fire upon the Grimm, momentarily stunning it and ran to join Jaune.

"On that... I might have thought it was a relic and might have grabbed it, the Deathstalker didn't take too kindly to that and we had to escape the cave we found it in, long story short I got hit by that thing all the way here in one quick toss." said Jaune.

"Jaune! Are you alright?" asked Pyrrha worriedly. She had felt Jaune's aura drop quite a lot when he got hit by said Deathstalker.

"I'm alright, it hurt like nothing else but I'm alright. Thank you Aura!" said Jaune as he looked at the Deathstalker. Suddenly, out of the bushes, a near death Ursa came flying out before dropping dead with a certain ginger haired girl on top.

"Aw... it's broken..." pouted Nora as she got off the deceased Grimm. Then, a few moments later, a newcomer arrived, and it was a certain green clad lotus lover.

"Nora... Never do that again..." said Ren exhaustedly, looking at the Ursa to see that Nora was already gone.

"I'm Queen of the Castle! I'm Queen of the Castle!" cheered Nora as she paraded over a silver rook.

"Nora!" yelled Ren tiredly.

"Heh, coming Ren!" said Nora as she ran over to her friend.

"I feel like we're missing something... Let's see... 1, 2, 3...7! There are seven people here... Ruby, where's your partner?" asked Jaune as Ruby pointed up to see a certain heiress holding on for dear life on a Nevermore.

"I said jump!" yelled Ruby from below.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?" yelled Weiss in an indignant manner.

"Do a back flip!" yelled Nora excitedly, to which everyone looked over to her.

"What, we were all thinking it!" said Nora happily.

"She's not wrong, you know..." said Jaune.

"AHH!" yelled the heiress as she lost her grip and fell off the Nevermore. Jaune looked around and saw that everyone was too busy not attempting to save Weiss's life to do anything.

"I got her, don't rush to help me or anything..." said Jaune as he got onto a tree branch before super jumping with Aura infused legs and catching the hieress.

"Just dropping in?" said Jaune, earning him a facepalm and a sigh, before gravity decided to reunite Jaune with the Earth. Painfully. With Weiss landing on top of Jaune.

"Ugh... what's with me and flying today?" said Jaune to himself, before Weiss got up, shot him a look, before sighing and helping him up.

"Question Weiss, what's your opinion of flying?" asked Jaune.

"I hate it a lot more now, why?" asked Weiss.

"I have to make sure that we're on the same anti-air page." said Jaune. He then looked around and saw that the Nevermore was circling around and the Deathstalker was deciding to near the group for an attack. He was not the only one to notice that.

"I got this!" said Ruby before she rushed the Deathstalker... only to be deflected by the claws.

"Don't worry, I'm alright..." said Ruby as she got up, but it seemed that the Deathstalker wasn't going to let that happen. Suddenly, before the aged Grimm could land a hit onto the huntress in training, a dust shot froze it's claws.

"You're childish, and immature, and reckless, but you're my partner... and I admit, I may be a bit mean, but I'll try if you will." said Weiss as she saved Ruby, starting from mean to kind in the speech.

"I don't want to stop this team building exercise, but we have more important things to do! Such as, defeating these Grimm." said Jaune as the group caught up to them.

"We can't fight them here, the plain will give them a great advantage. We need to move." said Blake.

"Running, that's an idea that I can get behind." said Jaune as they ran out of the clearing.

=O=

Soon, they arrived near a giant stone bridge, where the giant Nevermore decided to stay, limiting their options.

"Can we go around the Nevermore?" asked Jaune as he looked back.

"Nope!" said Ruby as the Deathstalker plowed through the trees, effectively cornering them.

"Nora, distract the Deathstalker, I have a plan." said Jaune as Nora turned her Warhammer into a Grenade Launcher, before launching heart grenades at the Deathstalker, stunning it momentarily.

"Ruby, Yang, can you and your partners defeat that Deathstalker?" asked Jaune.

"Of course we can! Who do you think we are?" said Yang cockily.

"Perfect. Pyrrha and I, as well as Nora and Ren will take out the Nevermore then. Any questions?" asked Jaune, to which no one objected.

"Let's go!" said Jaune as he ran out to the bridge with his team, whilst Ruby and her team stayed behind to deal with the Deathstalker. Truth be said, he didn't have much to deal damage against the overgrown bird, but he had a plan that could easily kill the Grimm.

"Pyrrha, Ren, I need you to distract the Nevermore. Nora, I need you to launch me onto the Nevermore. If you can do that, this Grimm will be down for the count!" said Jaune.

"We can do that" said Pyrrha as she and Ren laid fire upon the avian Grimm.

"Nora, this is going to be one shot and it'll really suck if you miss so tell me now, can you make the shot?" asked Jaune.

"...I can make the shot! Let's do this pancake buddy!" said Nora after a moment of thinking.

"Nevermore, you are history!" said Jaune as he pointed his sword at the Grimm, and prepared himself for whatever Nora was going to do. Immediately after, Nora turned her weapon back into it's hammer format in front of Jaune and hit the bridge with it, as well as using a grenade for extra speed, flinging Jaune towards the Nevermore at high speeds.

"THIS IS GOING TO SUCK!" said Jaune before landing onto the Grimm.

=O=

Ruby and her friends had just finished defeating the giant scorpion Grimm, with Yang using her semblance to utterly annihilate the Deathstalker after a few hits and had turned around to see Jaune on the Nevermore, hanging on for dear life.

"What's Jaune doing now?" wondered Ruby as Jaune hung on to the back of the Nevermore, slowly inching his way up the beast, with Pyrrha and Ren laying fire upon the birds front, whilst Nora was watching from behind next to a destroyed chunk in the bridge. Jaune then reached the back of the Grimm's neck, and cloaked his sword in aura before plunging it into the back of the Nevermore. Said Nevermore freaked out, before crashing into the side of the mountain opposite of their side of the bridge, creating a small dust cloud from the impact.

"What's going on?!" asked Weiss confused as suddenly the dust cloud dispersed with a great light of aura coming from it. The dust settled, and Jaune was left on the side of the hill with only a smaller feather showing the presence of the once great Nevermore, as well as small unreadable writing on his sword. The group ran over to him, shocked after his display.

"What happened? How did you kill the Nevermore?!" asked Yang confused on the turn of events.

"*cough* Let's say that I have a few secrets worth knowing. Let's go to the cliff now, I'm tired and I don't want to test my luck any further." said Jaune as he sheathed his sword and picking up the lone feather of the avian and putting it in his pocket, before promptly falling forward from exhaustion, much to everyones surprise.

=O=

"Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long. You have gathered the White Knight pieces, and now you shall form Team RWBY! Your leader will be... Ruby Rose!" said Ozpin, shocking Weiss, Ruby and a few others.

"What!?" yelled Weiss indignantly, to which the Headmaster completely ignored.

"Jaune Arc, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie, Lie Ren. You have gathered the White Rooks, and now you shall form Team JNPR! Your leader will be... Jaune Arc!" said the Headmaster.

"Huh... Pyrrha, when did you grab a relic?" asked Jaune.

"Good job Jaune, you will be our fearless leader and lead us through thick and thin! Also, I got it when you were saving Weiss from the ground." said Pyrrha.

"Don't call me that." said Jaune.

"Congrats Jaune on being our new fearless leader!" said Nora happily.

"Do well Jaune, we wouldn't want our fearless leader to lead us astray." said Ren.

"To our fearless leader!" said NPR happily.

"This is going to be a long four years..." said Jaune, to which the group including Jaune laughed.

=O=

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames **here and I hope you enjoyed the chapter. The real interesting bit is coming up next chapter, and if I can work hard enough and get enough support, it will be by the end of the week! That is all, I hope you enjoy Christmas! Black Flames out!


	4. A Fight of Negativity

Hey **RWBYBlackFlames** here, and this is Chapter 4. I hope you enjoy this and the deviation from the plot I'm taking. Also, fairly important note. There's a reason why Jaune defeated the Nevermore so easily and it's not because of plot armor or a super OP technique. Trust me, you'll understand soon.

=O=

**Chapter 4**

**A Fight of Negativity**

_"What's truly important is to know fear, yet take a step forward" ~Rosette Christopher, One of Vytal's Original Hunters._

=O=

As the newly named Team JNPR walked to their dorm with Team RWBY, the group had varying thoughts as they talked with each other. Ruby was nervous about her new leadership. Weiss was quite upset that she hadn't received the leadership. Blake was interested on how Ruby would lead and if it would stay. Yang was proud of her team. Then there was Team JNPR.

Nora was concerned about the number of pancakes there would be in their room, as for her consumption as well as a couple hundred other things. Pyrrha was interested in her new leaders ability that killed the Nevermore so quickly and other things about her leader. Ren was hoping that his new team would have a change of pace so that he could have peace and quiet as well as Nora at the same time.

Jaune was just plain tired. The second they got into their dorm, Jaune claimed the bed farthest to the left and went straight to sleep the very second he hit the bit, barely saying 'Good Night' before he was in Dreamland. Pyrrha was concerned, but it seemed that Nora didn't notice and Ren just didn't have enough energy to care about it. She eventually got to sleep, and soon it was morning.

"Good morning guys..." said Jaune with a yawn as he got out of bed.

"Good morning Jaune." replied Pyrrha, who was already fully dressed and was organizing her belongings.

"Good morning sleeping beauty!" said the other female of Team JNPR, who was wide awake and was bouncing off the walls, figuratively and literally. He probably shouldn't allow this girl to have any sugar. Unless he wanted to get back at someone...

"So Jaune, what classes do you have?" asked the redhead curiously.

"Let's see..." Jaune pulled out a book, with his student information on it. There were the standard classes; Grimm Studies, World History, Survival, Aura Studies, and finally Combat. Every student also had two free classes to do as they wished, which was normally 3 but him being leader killed that to two, so Jaune chose to have Advanced Tactics and Strategy for his first, and a free period for studying. As he is a leader, he has a mandatory leadership class.

"I start at 9 am with Grimm Studies with Professor Port, then World History with Professor Oobleck, after that I have Aura Studies with Professor Stein and Survival with Professor Peach. I then have Advanced Tactics and Strategy with Professor Lamperouge and Basic Leadership with Professor Hatake, before I end the day with Professor Goodwitch in Combat and I decided to take a break period after her class." said Jaune, looking at his schedule whilst reciting what he saw.

"Really, I share a lot of those classes, only Aura Studies and one of my free classes, Advanced Combat, switched. Seems you aren't going to be getting rid of me that easily." said Pyrrha with a smile.

"Who'd want to get rid of you?" replied Jaune smiling. After a couple seconds, Jaune realized something.

"Ren, get up." said Jaune as he poked his only male teammate. He only got a groan as a response.

"Ren, you're going to be late for class." Again, only a groan before he buried himself further into the bed. He would have to up the ante.

"Nora, can you wake up Ren for me?" asked Jaune with a sickeningly sweet voice.

"I'M UP!" shouted Ren, not wanting to be attacked by Nora. After ensuring that his childhood friend wasn't going to 'wake' him up, he sent a glare at Jaune, before turning into a smile.

"Welcome to the world of the living Ren." said Jaune with a small grin on his face.

"Jaune, can you do me a favor?" asked Ren.

"Yes Ren?" he replied.

"Can you wait a minute next time before sicking Nora on me?" asked Ren.

"No problem Ren, but remember Ren, I do want to see how Nora would wake you up if that's any motivation for you to get up the first time next time." said Jaune with a smirk.

=O=

Soon, everyone was ready for classes, and the only thing left to do was wait. Jaune then decided it was time for a team bonding exercise.

"Let's do some team management and answer a few questions about each other. We're going to be working for the next few years and we might as well get to know each other. Now, I don't mind if you don't feel like answering a question that's too personal, so don't worry. Now, ask away." said Jaune. There was silence for a few moments, as no one was particularly curious, but then his ginger haired teammate asked a question.

"Oh Jaune! Do you have any siblings? Like little sisters or big brothers? Or maybe both! I bet-" said Nora before he was cut off by Jaune.

"Nora, I'll answer you, just calm down for a second and let me speak." said Jaune.

"'Kay!" said Nora happily.

"I have seven sisters, but no brothers. I have Rouge, she has red hair and she is my youngest sister as well as the only one that I'm older than. She's turning twelve this year, so she'll be starting her training soon. I have 5 older sisters; Verta, Ange, Ciel, Feia, and Blanca; with green, purple, blue, orange and white hairs repectively." said Jaune.

"But that's only 6..." replied Nora.

"I'm sorry, I almost forgot. I have a twin sister whom I refuse to acknowledge that she is ten seconds older than me. Her name is Jeanne, and shares my dashing good looks. If it wasn't that she was a girl, we'd look exactly the same." said Jaune.

"Is there a reason that your families hair is the color of the rainbow?" asked Ren.

"You know as much as me, but their hair definitely reflect their personalities." replied the leader.

"You said that your younger sister, Rouge, was beginning her training. Does that mean combat training?" asked Pyrrha.

"Why yes, all Arcs are required to have combat training. In fact, I'm sure you'll be seeing a few of my sisters in this school, as they are also attending." said Jaune.

"Alright then, I can't wait to meet them then! So Jaune, do you have any questions for us?" asked Nora.

"Yes I do. Nora, when did you meet-" Jaune's question was cut off as he heard a shout from the opposite dorm.

"IT'S 8:55 YOU DOLT!" exclaimed a certain hieress from the Team RWBY dorm. Jaune and his team looked out to see the said team running down the hallway to get to class.

"Nora, I'll ask that question later. For now... BOOK IT!" said Jaune as they followed Team RWBY to their first class, Grimm Studies.

=O=

They had barely enough time to make it into the class before the bell rang, just entering the class before it rang. They got a few funny looks from the professor and some of the students, but after a few moments it was over. Mr. Port took a quick look around, and decided it was time to start.

"Monsters! Demons! Prowlers of the Night! Yes, the creatures of Grimm have many names, but I merely refer to them prey!" said the professor proudly. Unfortunately, not all the other students shared his enthusiasm.

"Uh... And you shall to after graduating from this prestigious academy! Now, as I was saying... Vale, as well as the other three kingdoms, are safe havens in an otherwise treacherous world. Our world is teaming with creatures that would love nothing more than to tear you to pieces, and that's were we come in. Huntsman, Huntresses, we are individuals sworn to protect those who can't protect themselves. From what, you may ask. The very World!" said the plump professor with enthusiasm.

"Yeah... heh.." he wasn't the only one sharing the enthusiasm as Jaune, and a few others gave a small cheer before silencing themselves after receiving a few odd looks and the occasional glare.

"That is what you are training to become! But first, a story! The tale of a young handsome man! Now..." Pyrrha had stopped listening for a moment, and took a look around. Nora was unsurprisingly not paying attention, and was trying to gain Ren's attention. Ren was trying to pay attention and get some notes in. Key word 'trying'. Jaune was completely engrossed, taking notes about the egocentrical professor, whom had a gold bust in the corner. That's when she took a look at team RWBY.

Yang wasn't paying that much attention, rather looking around as she was. Blake, she was taking the occasional note whilst looking at her team. Weiss looked extremely upset about something, as if someone had just insulted everything she stood for. And Ruby... who was causing Weiss's anger, by doing various things out of boredom, from balancing a pencil with several objects on it to a rather funny but mean picture of the professor. Weiss looked like she was going to explode.

"A true huntsman must be honorable!" said the professor, whilst Ruby unknowingly put more fuel into Weiss's rage.

"A true hunstman must be dependable!" Ruby was now taking a small nap, Weiss looked like she'd strangle her if this continued.

"A true hunstman must be strategic, well educated and wise!" Pyrrha at this point was questioning whether Ruby was doing this on purpose or not, as Weiss looked like she could kill everyone in this room and smile whilst doing it.

"Now, which one among you believes to be the embodiment of these traits?" asked the Professor at the right time, preventing a homicide in Team RWBY.

"I do, Sir!" angrily shouted the hieress.

"Well then, step forward and face your opponent!" said the professor, revealing a cage with a caged Grimm in it. Weiss stormed off to the combat room, to prepare for the coming opponent and get her battle gear. While that happened, a certain blonde had just learned about Hurricane Weiss.

"Hey, what's up with Weiss?" asked Jaune, who had just now realized what the entire class had known for the past couple minutes.

"I believe she's upset about something, possibly concerning Ruby." said Pyrrha, giving her thoughts on the subject.

"Really? I wonder what for. Maybe she wanted to be leader... I don't know, but it isn't going to end well for her if she's distracted while fighting a Grimm." said Jaune.

"Speaking of Grimm, you were pretty interested in Professor Port's lesson, didn't they have Grimm lessons where you're from?" asked the redhead.

"I can say I had Grimm lessons there, but nothing at all like this. This is an interesting class for me, as no-one where I'm from can teach with such...tenacity." said Jaune.

"Really, what did they teach you about then?" asked Pyrrha.

"Well... I'll tell you later as the snowflake has returned to the storm." said Jaune, with Weiss wielding her weapon, the dust rapier.

"Are you ready? Then let's begin!" enthusiastically shouted the teacher, as he used his weapon that was being displayed, a blunderbuss ax combination, or blunder-ax to free the Grimm from it's cage. The caged Grimm, a bourbatusk, immediately charged Weiss, who side stepped out of the way and allowed the Grimm to smash into a wall, dazing it for a few seconds.

"This isn't good..." said Jaune looking upon the fight.

"Why? What's wrong with the fight?" asked Pyrrha.

"Weiss is fighting a Grimm, an embodiment of all the negative emotions. The fact that she has so much rage right now, one of the leading negative emotions is feeding the bourbatusk with more power to fight her with. There's also the fact that she's fighting distracted. Weiss is at a serious disadvantage right now, anything more disadvantageous could end the fight for Weiss." said Jaune.

"Is it really that bad?" asked Pyrrha, already knowing the answer.

"Let me put it like this, if Nora was fighting the bourbatusk right now, it would already be over as a result of Nora's positivity and concentration, even though she has the worst weapon possible to defeat a Bourbatusk with as it would be at it's weakest. Weiss, however, has the best weapon for fighting an armored Grimm like this, a dust powered rapier, something that can do elemental damage, as well as poking hole through its armor. But at this state, it's likely that if her situation got any worse, there would be a very real possibility that she could lose this fight." said Jaune.

"Go Weiss! Represent Team RWBY!" enthusiastically shouted the team leader and unknowing source of Weiss's disadvantage. Weiss glared at her for a moment, and as a result was grazed by the Grimm, barely avoiding injury.

"If you are to fight any opponent, you must never allow yourself to be distracted, or allow your emotions to take control, no matter if it's a Beowolf or another fighter, for they will use that against you. Ruby is unknowingly making Weiss's fight harder right now, and there's not much we can do about it." said Jaune, looking at the fight with the Bourbatusk preparing for another attack.

"Aim for it's belly!" shouted Ruby, hoping to give some advice, whilst earning the opposite effect.

"Stop telling my what to do!" Weiss angrily replied, and in that moment of pure anger, the Bourbatusk went in for the kill. Weiss remembered about her adversary, and went in to block, a very poor choice with a rapier. Weiss got out unharmed, but her weapon was sent flying away.

"The only thing we can do now is hope Weiss can get the better of her emotions, or she will lose, and I'm assuming that is only going to send Weiss further down the path of self destruction." wisely said Jaune. Weiss lunged for her weapon, whilst the Bourbatusk prepared it's final charge, and right as Weiss got her weapon, the Grimm charged. Weiss managed to put up a glyph just in time, and the Grimm bounced off of it. The Bourbatusk managed to land onto it's back, which Weiss used to stab the Grimm cleanly in the belly, finishing off the Grimm.

"Take note everyone, we are in the presence of a true huntress!" said the Professor, watching the Grimm disappear into the air. Weiss then stormed off, still angry about whatever she had against Ruby. Jaune thought about helping, but it wasn't his place. He'd entrust the rest to the remainder of Team RWBY. Now was the time for the next class...

=O=

Jaune realized something as he walked to his next class with his team. It was nice not being horribly late to his class and not making a mad dash to avoid being late. Jaune had time to take out a notebook for History, and noted the people around him. There was Team CRDL, Team RWBY, whom had managed to regain it's W, there was his own team and a few other teams as well as a couple odd ones out.

"Welcome everyone, I am Professor Oobleck! This class is World History! In this class, we will be learning about..." Jaune quickly learned that Professor Oobleck wasn't someone he could just listen to. This teacher was talking a thousand miles an hour. He managed to catch a few things, such as Menagerie, White Fang, Revolution, and the Great War. This wasn't anything that Jaune didn't know about so he relaxed for a moment.

Soon, the class was nearly over, and most of the students had given up notes, with Ren, Pyrrha, Weiss and surprisingly Ruby desperately trying to keep up with the million word man. Soon the bell rang.

"Now, that's a shame that we're out of time. Remember class, this week we will be learning about the Forgotten Era as well as the Beginning Era! After that, we will be studying the Faunus Revolution!" said the green haired professor happily.

"That... That was interesting to say the very least." said Pyrrha as they joined up with the remainder of his team, as well as Team RWBY.

"I really couldn't make out much of anything he said, did you guys have any better luck?" asked Jaune.

"... I can honestly say I had no idea what he was saying, I'm pretty sure that guys semblance is speed talking or something..." said Yang, earning a few laughs.

"Hopefully, he'll slow down or we'll speed up, and speaking of speed, did you have any luck Ruby?" asked Jaune.

"I got quite a lot down, but even with my semblance of pure speed I couldn't keep up with him." said Ruby as she showed a few notes.

"Nice, well I'll see you guys later, I got to go to my next class, Aura Studies." said Jaune as he parted with the group. Only Ren and Blake followed, as they shared the class.

=O=

Soon, the smaller group made it to their class, Aura Studies. Rumor had it that this teacher was a bit of a nut in terms of sanity, but Jaune hoped for the best. Soon, class started and Jaune got quite a surprise.

In walked a Professor with a patchwork labcoat, with a pair of glasses and what appeared to be a screw in his head.

"Welcome to Aura Studies, I am Professor F. Stein and this class is for researching your aura and your semblance as well as other things. If you have any questions, take it up to my assistant." said the strange teacher. Following the teacher, another person walked in. Said person had green hair, wearing glasses as well, but her labcoat had no patches, and she was on a laptop typing something in. She looked up and saw everyone waiting.

"...I am Verta Arc, assistant to Dr. Stein. If you don't want to end up as an Aura experiment, I suggest not asking dumb questions." said Verta, not looking up. After a few moments of hesitation, Blake raised her hand.

"Would you be related to Jaune Arc, per chance?" asked Blake curiously.

"...Yes I would, why do you ask?" said Verta with a hint of interest in her voice. Jaune decided to take this time to speak up.

"Hey Sis..." said Jaune sheepishly. With Verta looking at him with the gleam of happiness in her eyes, before it was mercilessly killed off again and replaced with the same look of uninterest.

"You should've told me that you were coming sooner dummy, now does anyone else have a question?" said Verta with a small smile on his face. There were no more, and so Professor Stein took this time to speak.

"So, this class is going to be fun. We're going to explore the limits of Aura together as well as semblances. Remember, there is no detention or extra readings for being late or disturbing class." said the screw-head, earning a few cheers.

"You get to be an Aura test subject!" said the Professor happily, killing the cheers.

"Now, can someone tell me the basic types of aura?" asked the Professor. After a few moments, Ren raised his hand.

"Yes Mr. Lie?" called the teacher.

"There are many different types of Aura, but in the end there are 7 basic types of Aura, and they have to with color. There's Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange, Green, Purple and Brown." said Ren.

"Now, what about White and Black colored auras?" asked the Professor with interest in his voice.

"There isn't any pure white or pure black aura. Rather, there are the advanced auras, silver and grey with stronger abilities than the main seven." responded Ren.

"Perfect. There are, in total, 9 different possible aura types. We will be learning them over the course of the semester. However, before any of you get the wrong idea I might as well tell you something worth knowing before you go on experimenting on your aura. There is only one way to change your aura, and that is to change your soul. Unfortunately, it's near impossible to change your soul at all. The only way is for something traumatizing to occur, and it never ends well so don't try to change your aura type. Any questions so far?" asked Professor Stein. A kid in the back raised his hand, albeit hesitantly.

"Professor Stein, what's the relationship between Aura Types and Semblances." asked the student.

"That's an excellent question, a question worth answering. Now Verta, please answer the gentleman..." responded Professor Stein.

"Of course. Aura Types, as opposed to what you believe have a small effect on what your semblance will be. For example, a Red Aura Type has a higher chance of creating a semblance based off of boosting your strengths, such as raw speed, strength or even intellect. However this is not always the case. Now Professor, may I tell them about the many types of semblances or will that have to wait for the next class?" asked Verta, whilst looking at the clock.

"Oh, we seem to be out of time for now... Be prepared for tomorrow as we will be covering the types of semblances!" said the Professor as the bell rang, freeing the students from the teacher for another day.

=O=

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and I hope you enjoyed the chapter, for more is to come! Black Flames out!


	5. The Truth of Life

Hey Guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and Welcome to Chapter 5 and Happy New Years to all, except those crazy Chinese. I'll see you guys in a month or two. Anyways... I hope you enjoy this chapter!

=O=

**Chapter 5**

**The Truth of Life**

_"Those who break the rules are trash, but those who betray their comrades are worse than trash!" ~Kakashi Hatake_

=O=

"He was a rather... strange teacher, don't you think Jaune?" commented Blake as they exited Professor Stein's room.

"Yeah, and I don't think he was lying when he said that he would experiment on us either. At the very least, I got to see one of my sisters for the first time in a while though..." replied Jaune.

"True, I didn't think we would get to see your sister so soon..." said Ren as they walked to their next class.

"So, what's your next class?" asked Jaune.

"I have Survival with Professor Peach." said Ren.

"Same here." replied Blake.

"We share the same class then! That's good." commented Jaune as they walked to the class. As they walked, they saw their respective teams and joined their group.

"Hey Jaune, hey Ren, how was Aura Studies?" asked Pyrrha as they rejoined the group.

"It was... an interesting experience to say the very least." said Ren.

"Yeah, Professor Stein doesn't seem to be the kind of teacher to do things by the book, rather his own crooked way to get the same results but better. At the very least, I got to see one of my sisters." said the blond.

"Really? Who was it? How was she like?" asked Nora excitedly.

"It was one of my older sisters Verta. It really doesn't surprise me that she would end up as an assistant to someone like Professor Stein..." said Jaune.

"That's good, hopefully we will meet her soon. Now, which class are you heading to?" asked Pyrrha.

"We're heading to Survival with Professor Peach, and I assume you are too." said Jaune.

"Yep! Everyone here has Professor Peach right now!" said Nora happily.

"Good, it's nice to be with your team rather than being alone. Now let's hurry, we don't want to be late!" said Jaune as they neared the class aforementioned. They entered and soon found some seats, sitting rather close by to each other. Jaune then took a quick look around before the bell rang. It seemed that their teams, as well as Team CRDL and a few others were present. There wasn't an odd one out, like there was in Professor Oobleck. Soon, the bell rang.

"Hello Class, I am Professor Peach and I will be your Survival Teacher." said the professor as she walked into the class. The professor was a blonde, wearing a pink dress with a blue brooch.

"Now class, before we begin, I have a question. Who knows what you should do if you are stranded in the wilderness?" asked the Professor. There was some murmuring, but ultimately no-one raised their hand.

"Alright then, since no-one can answer that question correctly we can begin. I will teach you how to not only survive the wilderness, but thrive. By the time you finish this class at the end of the year, I expect that we can throw you anywhere and you will find a way to survive. We will begin this year by teaching you the types of edible plant life, and then the poisonous. Afterwards, we will teach you how to hunt, construct your own structure to shield yourself from the elements as well as other things to protect you from nature and perhaps even the Grimm. Now, do any of you have any questions?" asked the teacher. Cardin of CRDL then raised his hand.

"Why are we bothering to learn this? It's not like we're going to be sent into a jungle with only the shirts on our backs. We have technology on our side." asked Cardin.

"You'd be surprised what I've had to do in the past. I might as well tell you the Five Basic Rules to survive. Rule One: Never rely on any technology to survive, as when it fails you will be in deep trouble. Rule Two: Know your surroundings. I can't stress enough how easily you can land into a trap if you don't pay attention for even half a second. Rule Three: Always be prepared. Once you leave the territories, anything can and will happen. Until you are back in civilization, have a plan, a back up plan and a back up plan for the back up plan. Rule Four: Use your supplies to their fullest. Never blow supplies as if you can get them back at any moment when you least expect it, they will disappear and so will your chances to survive. Rule Five: This is the most important one. Never EVER go off on your own if you have someone else with you. No matter how efficient it would be to split up, always have someone at your side. This is extremely important to survive the Grimm, as they know your blind spots better then you know them, so if you split yourself up, you split your power to fight back and when you need it most, you will be alone. The Grimm are especially known for surprise attacks, so if you have someone watching your back, your chances of survival will increase exponentially. Now, any more questions?" asked the Professor with a smile after the speech. Nobody spoke up, and the Pink Professor was free to continue.

"Now, let's begin with the first unit. Plant life, or Flora are..."

=O=

"That was an interesting class to say the very least." said Jaune as they walked out towards the lunchroom.

"Yeah, even if it does get dark sometimes, it's very important for us." commented Pyrrha as they walked to the lunchroom.

"Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, I probably would've eaten a few of those poisonous plants if I was out in the wilderness" replied Ruby.

"I agree, a lot of the poisonous plants look very similar to the safe plants, with only small differences such as an extra leaf or a lighter shade of color on some of them." said Ren.

"It goes to show that everything wants us dead outside of the territories." commented Yang as they entered the lunchroom. After a few minutes, everyone had their food, with Ruby choosing some sweets, Weiss choosing some fancy food, Blake choosing some sushi, Yang had a hamburger, Jaune had a hamburger as well, Pyrrha choosing some Mistralian cuisine, Nora somehow found pancakes and finally Ren had some noodles.

"So... How's everyone doing?" asked Jaune, hoping to start up a conversation.

"I'm a bit tired, but hopefully I'll get used to it." said Ren.

"I can't wait for combat class!" said Nora, after inhaling another pancake.

"Hell yeah! I love combat class!" replied Yang excitedly, giving Nora a high five.

"I get to see other weapons while I get to show off my sweetheart, what's not to love?" said Ruby happily.

"You know, there's only one real way to get to know someone and that's through a spar. You see how they think, they act, and who they are and only then do you know who someone is." said Jaune.

"Wow Jaune, that was deep..." said Ruby surprised.

"Eh, I stole that from my father." said Jaune with a smile.

"Really? He seems like an interesting man. I hope I can meet him one day..." said Pyrrha with a small grin.

"I really hope you don't see him any time soon..." said Jaune with a frown on his face.

"Why?" asked Ruby confused.

"Well, there's only one way to meet my parents and that's if you go six feet under..." said Jaune sadly, with the others realizing what he meant.

"Oh, I'm sorry for bringing it up." said Pyrrha.

"Don't be, it's been five years. I can handle it." said Jaune.

"So how's everyone's classes going?" asked Yang, changing the subject.

"Good, but if you have Professor Stein, I'd be a bit cautious if I were you..." said Blake. Soon, the group was back to their happy self with them discussing various things, with the exception of Weiss not talking to anyone and Blake primarily reading her book. Eventually, lunch was over and everyone headed to their next class, with Jaune going to his optional class, Advanced Tactics and Strategy with Professor Lamperouge.

=O=

"Welcome to Advanced Tactics and Strategy. I will be your teacher, I am Professor Lamperouge. Before we begin, I noticed a something among you. We have a freshman in our class. Mr. Arc, please come here." said the Professor. Speaking of the professor, he didn't look as if he was much older than some of the students, but no-one questioned it.

"Alright Mr. Arc, please tell me something. Where is the position of the leader in the battle?" asked the teacher, looking him dead in the eyes. It took him a moment of thought, but he eventually spoke up.

"The position of the leader is with next to his comrades, as leaders shouldn't hide behind their armies. They are leaders after all, not hiders." said Jaune.

"Exactly. Now class, remember this. If a leader doesn't lead, then his comrades won't follow. Now Mr. Arc, please take a seat and we may begin." Jaune then took a seat again, and the Professor began.

"This class isn't like others, where we will have lessons and long speeches, rather we will be using an alternate route. Every day, I will show you a some strategies used by the leaders among the years, and then we will begin part two of the lesson. I have sent you a link to a download of a 'game'. This game is not unlike the war, and every day you shall combat one another student in this to see if you can beat them. There will be zero homework this whole year. The only homework you should do is study all the strategies and the advantages and disadvantages of some terrain over others. Now let us begin." said the teacher as the students pulled out their scroll, and the teacher had indeed sent them a link to a game.

Soon, the download had been completed and everyone was registered to the game.

"Alright, if everyone is registered, then let's get a war started. Figuratively of course." said Professor Lamperouge. He then pressed a button on his scroll, and on the board appeared a small tournament bracket. Jaune looked onto the board and saw his match. Which after, a tall man with of eastern descent came to him, with a few tattoos on his face.

[JAUNE ARC: (KnightOfArthuria) VS YEMAN REN: (GreatConquererOfOld)]

"Hello, I am Yeman. I assume you are Jaune. I wish you good luck, you will need it to beat me." said the man with a grin.

"I'm not gonna need luck to beat you when I got my army on my side." replied Jaune, leading them both to laugh. Soon, they were both in the game and Jaune got to see why this was like war. He had 1,000 troops, with ? for his opponent, for which Jaune assumed to also be 1,000. He could only see so far into the map before a fog appeared, which signaled what he couldn't see. The terrain was a plains to the front, an ocean to the left and a dense forest to the right. He couldn't go into the ocean as he had no boats, so he was limited.

"Hm..." Jaune sent ten of his troops forward to scout. After a minute, his scouts saw the enemy marching towards him, to which the enemy then rushed his scouts before he could retreat, losing ten of his men without his enemy losing one.

"What..." Jaune then saw that as all of his scouts died, the area became foggy again. With this knowledge, he sent half of his troops into the forest, and the other half marching towards the enemy. Soon, Jaune's troops encountered the enemy, and there was a battle. As his troops started to lose, he sent the ones from the forest in from the side to fight, in a pincer maneuver, flanking Yeman's troops.

"How did-" and so Jaune's troops defeated Yeman's, albeit at the cost of quite a few troops.

"Good game Yeman." said Jaune, offering a handshake, to which after a moments hesitation Yeman took.

"I'll wipe the floor with you next time." said Yeman with a small chuckle. Soon, everyone else finished their matches.

"Alright, now that everyone is finished, I can this bracket. Every day we will have a match against someone with the initial winners having a bracket and the initial losers having one as well. If you lose after this, you will be out of the running for that weeks tournament, but you can practice with someone else who had lost. However, if you can win the entire tournament, then you will be rewarded. Now run along, class ends in three seconds." said the professor. True to his word, the bell rang and class ended.

=O=

"Hey Ruby!" said Jaune as he walked to his next class, leadership with Professor Hatake.

"Hey Jaune, how are you?" asked Ruby.

"I'm well, I just got out of Advanced Tactics. I assume we're both going to Basic Leadership now or am I wrong?" replied Jaune.

"You're right, I wonder what kind of class it is though..." wondered Ruby as they entered the class. As they walked in, they saw all the other freshman team leaders, and the duo took their seats. After a minute, the bell rang and class began. After a minute with no teacher, everyone got confused, before a man with white spiky hair walked in with a headband covering his left eye and a mask covering his nose and mouth.

"Sorry kids, I got busy on the path of life. Now that I'm back, I am Professor Hatake and I am the teacher for Basic Leadership. In this class, I will attempt to teach you how to be the best leader you can be, but it is up to you to listen. Now, let's begin. Who knows what a leader is?" asked the Professor. After a few moments, someone in the back raised his hand.

"Yes Mr. Chan?" said Professor Hatake.

"A leader is the one who calls the shots in the battle." said the student.

"Close but no... Yes Mr. Arc?" said the Professor as he raised his hand.

"A Leader is a person who is responsible for everything that happens to those under his leadership, and they make most of the decisions, but without a team, he is no-one. A Leader is a person who represents his entire team, for good or for bad." responded Jaune.

"Good Answer, A Team Leader is a representation of his or her respective team, and they make all the calls. Now, tell me this, how do you lead a team effectively? I expect some thought into this, for I will accept your answers tomorrow. Now, let's begin the first team leader exercise. We will be showing various scenarios, and you as the team leaders must make the call on what to do. This can vary from a small delivery mission to defeating a Grimm that none of you can defeat alone to even a Life or Death situation. Let's begin!" and so the class started. True to his word, there were various exercises for every team leader, and nearly everyone had made a mistake, from minor mistakes on some to catastrophic failures on others. Finally, Jaune had gone up to the plate.

"Alright Mr. Arc, let's begin. There is a Rank S Hydra coming after you with no signs of stopping. You are retreating with your team against the Grimm. If this continues, it will catch up to you and kill you and your team. A Bullhead is 100 meters away, but it will catch up to you if you cannot stop or slow it further. What do you do?" asked the teacher.

"Where are we being chased?" asked Jaune, hoping for a canyon. It seems that the Professor was reading his mind and shot it down.

"If you were hoping that you would be in a canyon or mountain side to use nature to defeat it, you are mistaken. You are in a forest, with the Hydra only being slowed by the trees." replied the white haired professor.

"Is there any visible damage or weakness I can exploit?" asked Jaune.

"No, this Grimm is perfectly healthy, with the trees it's destroying not even leaving a scratch." replied Professor Hatake.

"Hm... this is my last question. Is there any way to hide or outrun the Grimm?" asked the blond.

"No, you cannot out run this monster. You can hide, but eventually it would find you and your team or destroy the Bullhead before going after you. What is your decision?" asked the teacher for the last time.

"Well, there is only one possible way to slow this Grimm long enough for my team to get away. A sacrifice must be made. Someone needs to distract the Grimm long enough for the remainder to get away." said Jaune.

"Correct so far. Now tell me, what are you going to do. Who will you send back." said the Professor.

"Since my partner has a rifle, good for hitting spots like the eye, Nora has a grenade launcher, excellent for distractions if not damage, and Ren has a rapid fire gun, great for annoyances, I can only do one thing. I send myself back to distract the beast long enough for my friends to escape." said Jaune. The class was silent for a moment before the teacher spoke up.

"You are aware that you will not survive if you send yourself back. Is this still your final decision?" asked Professor Hatake.

"Of course, if I am in this situation, then I must have made an error somewhere allowing this to happen. And as a Team Leader, I have to take responsibility for my own actions no matter what. Besides, I couldn't sleep at night knowing that I sent my friend and comrade to his or her death just so I can survive." said Jaune. The class was silent whilst the teacher thought. After a minute, Professor Hatake spoke up.

"Excellent! You have given me the correct answer for this scenario. I will tell you now, you are the team leader, and everything that happens because of the team happens because of you, good or bad. Now, there is one final thing I must say before class ends. Those who break the Hunter's Rules are trash, but those who betray their comrades are worse than trash! Take this to heart, as tomorrow, if I here one response for my question that sacrificing comrades is alright, I will fail you from this class outright. Now, there's only a few minutes before class ends, you can talk amongst yourselves." said the teacher.

"Is that what you really think Jaune?" asked Ruby as the students around them talked to each other.

"Of course, I would never let a team member die before I do. No matter what, there is one thing we need to know. As team leaders, our needs come last to those of the team." said Jaune.

"I think I learned something new about you Jaune." said Ruby as the class ended.

"Let's go Crater Face, we got a class to get to..." said Jaune as Ruby pouted at the name.

=O=

As Jaune entered the class with Ruby, he saw that their respective teams had already arrived, and sat next to them. Soon, the class began and a blonde with a riding crop and glasses came out. Enter Professor Goodwitch.

"I am Professor Goodwitch. This is Combat Class. In this class, you will fight with each other as even though you are hunters, the enemy is not always a Grimm. I will not allow disruptions in this class, and I do not recommend you get on my bad side. Now, if introductions are out of the way, we can begin. For today, we will have partners spar with each other. Some may have to wait as there will not be enough training rooms, but I can guarantee that there will be enough for everyone to have had a chance by the end of the class." said the Professor. Soon, the training rooms were full, with Team JNPR opting to wait until the latter end of the class.

"This'll be an interesting fight, who do you think will win Pyrrha?" asked Jaune as they watched Ruby and Weiss spar with each other.

"Hm... I'd say it's an even match other than the fact that Weiss seems upset. That alone might give Ruby the victory. If you can't put aside emotions while you fight, you can only weaken yourself." said Pyrrha wisely as Ruby dodged another blast from Weiss's attack.

True to Pyrrha's word, Weiss got more and more careless, using her glyphs and dust half-hazardously. After a minute of dodging, Ruby used her semblance to close the gap and finish the fight with a swing of her scythe. Weiss had already expended a lot of her aura trying to attack.

"It would've been much closer if she had a clear mind. I've battled quite a few people in the tournaments I've been in, and once you allow yourself to be controlled by emotions, you can't win." said Pyrrha.

"Hey, now that they're finished, do you want to battle?" asked Jaune.

"Sure, I'd love to Jaune." said Pyrrha as they walked to the training room.

"On three, we start. Sound good to you Pyr?" asked Jaune as he unsheathed his sword.

"Sounds good to me." said Pyrrha as she pulled out her spear.

"3...2...1...Go!" said Jaune and the battle began.

=O=

Pyrrha had battled strange opponents in the past, so she was prepared for whatever Jaune would do. She decided to give Jaune the first move, as to see what he was going to do, but he was not taking it. Suddenly, Jaune shot forward, hoping to take her from the left. Pyrrha blocked and put in a jab, to which Jaune attempted to evade, only to fail, earning a hit on his side. Jaune then put up his shield, hoping to block any incoming attacks and retreated. Jaune hadn't succeeded in his attack and had learned his lesson. Pyrrha then ran at Jaune, and got behind Jaune's defenses, earning a few more jabs while Jaune attempted to strike back, only for Pyrrha to dodge.

"Come on Jaune, you can do this!" said Pyrrha, hoping to inspire confidence in Jaune. It had the effect that Pyrrha hoped, and Jaune went to attack again. This time, with a bit more confidence Jaune attacked again. Pyrrha had to use her semblance to move Jaune's sword just out of the way so it would barely miss her and she attacked again, earning another blow onto him. This continued for several minutes before Jaune was nearing red territory.

"Is this it Jaune?" asked Pyrrha. She had taken one or two hits, but it wasn't anything worth acknowledging.

"I have one more trick up my sleeve Pyrrha." said Jaune as he panted, whilst lowering his shield. Suddenly, Jaune ran at Pyrrha. Pyrrha prepared her shield and waited for Jaune's attack only to be met with surprise. Jaune then let a burst of aura out, blinding her for a second before he felt a sword hit her back. She turned around and swung at Jaune, only for him to use his aura flash again. Pyrrha was prepared this time and swung her sword behind her, earning a small shout before hitting Jaune into the red, ending the match. In the end, Pyrrha was lowered to barely above green.

"Good match Jaune, you did well." said Pyrrha in her standard fashion after a win.

"Come on Pyrrha, you don't have to lie to my face. But I did learn something from this." said Jaune with a smile on his tired face.

"And that is?" asked Pyrrha.

"I need more training..." said Jaune, sheathing his sword.

=O=

Hey Guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and that was chapter five, I hoped you enjoyed it. I just wanted to introduce the classes for the past two chapters so yeah... It'll get interesting next chapter. Black Flames out!


	6. The Cycle of Hate

Hey Guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here! Here's Chapter 6.

Also, I owe you some explaining about Jaune's sisters. Here's the deal. Jaune = French Yellow. Verte = French Green. I've decided that since Rainbows are have arcs, and how Jaune is straight up French Yellow, that the rest of the family will be the rest of the rainbow. Also, noteworthy, Jaune's parents are Blanc and Noir Arc. Black and White. So yeah. Rainbow Arcs... I'll probably get a better explanation later. Let me know your thoughts, and other than that, Enjoy!

=O=

**Chapter 6**

**The Cycle of Hate**

_"Words are like swords. If you use them the wrong way, they can turn into ugly weapons" ~Anonymous_

=O=

As the other students relaxed in their dorms, read books in the library, and socialize with their friends, there was a sound of metal hitting metal above the first year dorm rooms. This sound originated from two blades named Miló and Crocea Mors.

"Not bad Jaune, you're doing much better! I think that with just a little more training, you'll be able to give almost anyone in the first year a run for their money!" said Pyrrha as the blades clanged against each other.

"Thanks Pyr, but I still have a lot to learn before I can give you a run for your money." said Jaune as the blades broke apart. It's been a two weeks since Pyrrha curb stomped Jaune in Combat Class. After the fight, Jaune swallowed his pride and asked to train with Pyrrha in hopes of getting better. Pyrrha accepted this, and the two began their secret training regiment. They chose the rooftop to spar, mainly so they wouldn't have to worry about not having room in the training rooms and so that they could keep their moves secret. It wasn't good to show your enemy your weakness's and your secret strategies.

"Don't lose your focus Jaune!" said Pyrrha as she charged Jaune again, with Miló in it's spear form. Pyrrha had slowly been holding less back with each fight, with the unspoken rule of not using her or his semblance in these bouts. Now, with no tricks and no special aura abilities, Pyrrha had a challenge each and everyday with Jaune. Jaune was slowly becoming aware of her strategies, her tricks and was starting to put her in a troublesome position. Normally, in the tournaments she's been in, Pyrrha would let her opponent show her their tricks, and would quickly defeat them without showing them any of hers, and it was just a touch of her semblance before they would go down. However, with Jaune learning her tricks and how to counter them, it was becoming harder and harder to defeat the blond.

"Oh cr-" said the knight as Miló shot forward, managing to hit him square in the chest, lowering his aura and knocking him onto his back. Before he could get up, a certain red head's blade had already finding his way to his neck, effectively ending the match.

"Good job Jaune! You did very well, you almost had me there a few times!" said Pyrrha, giving Jaune some words of encouragement.

"You don't have to lie to my face, I know you had a few tricks to get out of my clutches. But I did get a few good hits in..." said Jaune as he laid.

"Hmm... I suppose you're right, but you don't give yourself enough credit Jaune, you're a very quick learner." said Pyrrha, offering a hand to help him up, to which he took.

"It's better than giving myself too much credit though, but you're right. Now, didn't Nora say something about having a pancake party with Team RWBY for surviving the first two weeks of school?" asked Jaune.

"I think she did, even if the purpose if the party isn't all that grand. It goes to show that she'll use anything as an excuse for sweets." said Pyrrha.

"I don't blame her, I wouldn't mind having sweets everyday either. Now Pyrrha, go run on ahead and make sure there's something for us before Nora eats them all. She said it would start at 8 o'clock and it's 8:15 now. I need to do something first, so I'm relying on you." said Jaune pulling along. Pyrrha looked as if she was going to ask for a moment, but decided against it.

"Alright Jaune, but do hurry, I can't keep Nora AND Ruby from the pancakes for long." said Pyrrha as she walked off.

"Don't worry, it won't take long!" said Jaune, pulling out his scroll.

=O=

Pyrrha had almost reached her dorm before she realized that she had forgotten Akoúo on the rooftop. After a minute of walking, Pyrrha had made her way to the rooftop door before she heard some noises from the other side.

"Ah Lenore, I'm glad to see you! How was the trip?" asked Jaune from the other side of the doorway. Next came a more feminine but darker voice.

"It went well, there was some trouble entering this place, but there were no problems." said what Pyrrha assumed to be Lenore.

"Excellent. Now, what the news of my sisters?" asked Jaune in a serious tone.

"Blanca is fairing well, but the elders are pressuring her to do their wishes. Fortunately, Blanca has refused to make a move, essentially putting their plans in a deadlock." said Lenore.

"And of Jeanne?" asked Jaune.

"She is also managing to keep up the ruse, however she has told me to remind you of the time limit before you need to make a decision." said Lenore.

"... damn I forgot about the time limit but it shouldn't affect anything, but other than that everything is going better than expected. That will be all Lenore, thank you." said Jaune.

"It was my pleasure..." said Lenore. Moments after that happening Pyrrha saw a light shine from the cracks of the door before all was silent. After a few moments of waiting, Pyrrha opened the door to the rooftop and saw Jaune holding a small black feather.

"Pyrrha!? What brings you back?" asked Jaune in a nervous-like manor.

"I forgot my shield up here, so I rushed over from our room to go get it. I saw a small light come from the door as I was nearing it, and I thought I heard someone talking, did something happen up here?" asked Pyrrha, holding back some of the information. Even if it wasn't telling the whole truth, it was better than admit to practically spying on him. If he wanted to tell her, he'd tell.

"Oh, it's right over there, and I was practicing my Aura Flash technique for my next match in Professor Goodwitch, I was also doing some thinking aloud as I thought about another technique" said Jaune, not wanting to tell Pyrrha the truth.

"... Alright, now let's go and meet our guests in our dorm room." said Pyrrha as she picked up her shield, dropping the topic.

The duo made their way to their dorm room, only to discover that they were too late and that Ruby and Nora had already finished the pancakes with sheepish looks on their faces. The group still enjoyed their party, and soon after Team RWBY called it a night, returning to their dorm rooms, with Team JNPR doing the same. The only thing that Pyrrha wondered about as she went to sleep was the identity of Lenore and why Jaune would lie to her, but put it to rest as she fell asleep, hoping that Jaune would tell her the truth in time.

=O=

After the party from last night, the next day started off rather boring, with another story from Professor Port in Grimm Studies. However, this changed as the group entered World History.

"Greetings students, I have good news! Today we will be discussing the Faunus-Human War, or otherwise known as the Great War. Before we start however, we should take a small look upon the time before the war. Can anyone tell me what that time was called?" asked Professor Oobleck. Weiss then raised her hand among several others.

"Excellent, now is the answer Weiss?" said the green haired teacher.

"It was called the First Era, as everything before this Era is nearly completely unknown." said Weiss.

"Good answer. The First Era is one of the only things we know about before the Great War. From this knowledge, I can tell you of many things about the Great War. In the beginning, Remnant was empty for all of one thing and that was Monty Oum. He grew tired of this emptiness and created the darkness we know as Grimm. For their adversaries, he created the Human and the Faunus. Humanity fought against the Grimm, and we lost many battles. Soon, we were on our last legs, but the Humans discovered Dust, and we fought back. Soon, the Grimm who were unprepared for it were destroyed, retreating to the far corners of Remnant." The Professor took a pause, looking around as if someone had a question, but there were none.

"Now, after this there was peace for a long time as all were happy and the Grimm were nearly vanquished. Soon however, the Faunus and the Humans had a quarrel over land and who should get what. The Human's insisted that they should have more territory as they had discovered dust, and Faunus thought that it should get more as their advantages over humans, such as they were stronger and had other advantages that had saved humanity several times during the fight against Grimm. Soon, war broke out and the two former allies collided. Unfortunately for humans, during the period of peace the humans had shared how to acquire dust. The Faunus's supply wasn't anything to brag about but it was able to help them fight in the war, eliminating one advantage that humans had over them. The Faunus were slowly overtaking the Humans nearly lost the war if it wasn't for one man. Does anyone know who he is?" asked the professor, looking around. A sole hand rose, and it's owner was no other than Jaune Arc.

"Excellent Mr. Arc, I assume you will tell us of who it was with some detail." said the Professor.

"Of course, it is something that's been passed down from generation to generation in my family. My Grandfather's Grandfather was Julius Arc, the great general. Initially, he was one of the three great leaders in the darkness war, as well as the only human one. When the Great War began, Julius had good will towards the faunus, unlike the rest of humanity and refused to lead against his old allies. Right before humanity would've lost, the leaders of humanity at the time had kidnapped Julius's wife, Joan and had threatened to execute her if Julius didn't lead humanity in the war. Against his own heart, he agreed and with his powers, known as the Three Trumpcards, as well as his leadership, the Faunus had the tide turned on them." said Jaune, with everyone looking surprised that Vomit-Boy had came from humanity's savior.

"Excellent Mr. Arc, now does anyone have a question?" asked the Professor, to which Weiss raised her hand again.

"What were the Three Trumpcards?" asked Weiss.

"That is an excellent question, and if Jaune is willing, he has an answer." said the professor.

"The Three Trumpcards, well they were as the name would suggest. If an Arc used them in battle, the battle would be guaranteed for them. Everyone in the Arc line can use all three of these abilities. They are secrets, as they wouldn't be so powerful if everyone knew about them but I can tell you about the first and a little of the second. The first one is the Arc Line Semblance. The Arc Line Semblance is one of histories first known semblances. We use our immense Aura pools to create light and powerful items out of Aura. From a pocket-knife to a full suit of armor, an Arc could create them at will and dispel them when they wished. Not only were the items made of aura, but they could block or cut through nearly any metal at the time. Unfortunately for me, I haven't unlocked my semblance yet, so I cannot demonstrate. The Second Trump Card is something even more powerful then our semblances. All I can tell is that any of the nine initial Arc weapons would become so unimaginably powerful that there has not been a battle that we've lost after unlocking the weapon. The Third Trump Card is why the Arcs won the war, and I refuse to say what it is, even at threatening of death as this ungodly power can destroy a nation in a moments notice. At this point in time, I can't use any of these Trump Cards yet, but trust me I am trying to get to them." said Jaune, shocking his fellow students. After all, if an Arc could destroy a nation at a moments notice, who wouldn't worry?

"Excellent explanation Mr. Arc, and I hope you are satisfied Ms. Schnee. Now, if I may continue we shall discuss the end of the war and perhaps a few key battles before the class ends. With Julius's power, the Faunus soon were defeated. However, Julius still had an open heart for the faunus and attempted to return the era to the previous peace it once held. Unfortunately, the other leaders had decided that punishment was necessary, and the Faunus were given only Menagerie for land, and banished them everywhere else, as well as a forced tax on them for war reparations with other horrible punishments. As a result of this, Julius in outrage took his line and left humanity. Not a single Arc was heard from for decades, until 20 years ago when Noir Arc had attended this school. After 100 years of punishment, the Faunus began the Faunus Right's Revolution, more commonly known as the Faunus War, but we will discuss this later. Are there any questions so far?" asked Professor Oobleck.

"Yeah, I have a question for you Doc. Why are we bothering to learn this? This doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Grimm." said Cardin in a disrespective manner.

"Why, this has everything to do with Grimm! If you were paying attention, you would remember that after the Darkness War, the Grimm were near extinction, and as a result they were not a threat. However, with all the negative emotions flowing during and after the war, the Grimm were empowered to the extremes, to where they are still being empowered by it, and it leads to our problem with the Grimm now. Is that satisfactory Mr. Winchester? Then let us continue..." said the Professor.

=O=

Soon, History ended, and the other classes went by quietly and it was soon lunchtime. Normally, it would be talks of Nora's dreams, Ruby attempting to make her team happy, Yang cracking the occasional pun with little reception, but today was different as everyone was curious about Jaune. Ruby was curious about Jaune's ancestors weapons, Weiss was interested in what could possibly end nations, Yang wanted to know what the Third Trumpcard was out of the fact that she didn't know it as well as she wanted to beat it. Nora shared Yang's feelings, Pyrrha was slightly interested in Jaune's opinion of the faunus as well as Blake and Ren was only interested in the fact that Nora was being more quiet than usual. Jaune was running late to lunch, to see that his friends were staring at him, waiting for him to take a seat.

"Uh... Is there something on me?" asked Jaune as he took a seat. It was quiet for a moment, before Yang destroyed said silence.

"Tell me what's the third trumpcard is!" shouted Yang.

"Hey Yang, I can't tell and you know it. If it needs to be, I'll be in the grave before I reveal what it is prematurely. It is that powerful. And no amount of threats, bribery, etc. can convince me otherwise." said Jaune, earning a whine from Yang as well as Nora.

"Can you tell me about your ancestors weapons?" asked Ruby with a curious look in her eyes.

"I can tell you that I suppose, when Julius was in the war, he created nine weapons that he could use, and they were known as the Arc Weapons. There is Rutilus Mors, the lance cannot be blocked; Crocea Mors, the longsword that can never be dulled and the shield that can block any attack, which is my weapon; Caeruleum Mors, the axe that can destroy any defense; Luteus Mors, the mace that can break any weapon in a single swing; Viridus Mors, a dagger that will never be seen nor heard; Purpura Mors, the bow that needs no arrows; Rosea Mors, the katana that can overwhelm any opponent; Candidus Mors, the chakram that will always return and finally the most deadly; Ater Mors, the broadsword that can shake the ground from a mere swing. These weapons are the Arc Weapons, with my ancestor primarily using Crocea and Ater. These are without the effect of the Second Trumpcard." said Jaune, listing off the weapons.

"Wow... I wish I could see them all..." said Ruby as she envisioned the amazing weapons.

"Yeah, they're pretty amazing... There was one for each of me and my siblings, so we didn't really argue on which one we wanted, as in the end we each got our preferences. It's nice..." said Jaune as he took a hamburger from his plate.

"Wait, didn't you say that-" Nora's question was cut off as a small shout came from a table behind Jaune. Said table was housing Velvet Scarlatina and Team CRDL, who were terrorizing the aforesaid bunny faunus, with Cardin yanking on the extra set of ears.

"I'm sorry Nora, I'll be right back. I need to teach those guys some manners." said Jaune as he walked off.

"Wait Jaune, you could get into trouble if you beat up those guys, I'm sure there's a better solution! I want to help but I don't want to get anyone in trouble." said Ruby attempting to stop Jaune, to which it fell onto deaf ears.

"Sorry Rubes, once I make up my mind, I see it through to the end." said Jaune walking over to the table. Cardin and his lackeys hadn't noticed him, nor Velvet, but the rest of the cafeteria did. Jaune grabbed his shoulder, causing the brute to turn around.

"What do you want Arc?" asked Cardin in an annoyed tone as he was forced to stop his 'game'.

"Oh Cardin, I'm glad to see you. Nice team, I like the green mohawk guy over there, and you guys seem like your pretty cool dudes." said Jaune.

"Oh, thanks-" said Cardin before he was cut off.

"BUT... There is the fact that you're hurting poor Velvet over here, I'd imagine that having your ears yanked isn't pleasant, especially if they're extra sensitive. So I'm gonna have to ask you to cut that out." said Jaune, staring Cardin in the eyes.

"And if we don't?" asked Cardin in an annoyed tone.

"Well, let's just say that during Combat Class, you and my sword are going to become very close." said Jaune unflinchingly.

"Is that a threat Arc?" asked Cardin, pushing him.

"Of course not, it's merely a warning, but all you have to do is give poor Velvet over here an apology as well as promise you won't do it again and it'll just stay as that. A warning." said Jaune, as the cafeteria was silent. There was a few moments before Cardin spoke again.

"Why do you care Arc?" asked Cardin, with an angry look in his eyes.

"Oh, is it not right to help out a cousin in need?" asked Jaune jokingly, silencing the entire cafeteria.

"So you're-" started Cardin before he was answered.

"Oh heck yeah, I'm a quarter rabbit faunus, do you have a problem with that?" said Jaune, looking him dead in the eyes. There was silence in the cafeteria as everyone processed this information.

"I didn't know your grandpa had a bunny girl fetish Jauney boy." said Cardin with a smirk.

"Eh, Grandma but close enough, I don't judge. Now, I'm going to ask you one more time, are you going to leave Velvet alone?" asked Jaune threateningly. Cardin didn't hesitate as he answered.

"I hope you aren't all bark Jaune cause if it isn't, they'll have to scrape you off the wall after I'm done with you. Let's go guys." said Cardin as he walked off with his cronies. There was silence for a moment, before everyone went back to their conversations with a few faunus happy with a bully put in his place. Jaune then took Velvet back to the Team RWBY/JNPR table.

"You alright bun? Do you need an ice pack?" asked Jaune as he worriedly rubbed Velvet's ears.

"I'm alright Jaune, thank you. You didn't have to stand up for me though, I could've taken care of myself.

"I'm sure, I know you have the patience to wait out a thousand hurricanes but I'd rather not see what happens when you snap, I've seen your weapon after all." said Jaune as they sat down.

"Thanks Jaune." said Velvet one last time as she took a seat next to Jaune.

"No Problem, now Velvet, meet my partner Pyrrha, the remainder of my team Nora and Ren, and Team RWBY with Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang. And guys, this is Velvet, my dear cousin who made me my wonderful onesie. Oh yeah, if you have a complaint about me being part faunus, I regret to inform you that you are a few decades late for changing that." said Jaune, to which after was a few moments of silence until Nora broke it.

"Oh my gosh, you're ears are so cuuuuute~" said Nora reaching out to touch them, to which Ren smacked her hand.

"Nora, didn't Velvet here just get finished having her ears damaged, and besides you should at least ask first." said Ren scolding the valkryie.

"I'm sorry Velvet..." said Nora disappointingly.

"Don't worry about it, I'm tougher than I look." said Velvet with a smile.

"So does that mean-" said Nora hopefully.

"I'm sorry, but my ears are still hurting, but perhaps later?" said Velvet.

"Sure! I'll be extra gentle!" The group then restarted their conversations, with now Velvet in the mix. Everything was happy with the only distressed question on Jaune's mind was if he could beat Cardin. The only thing that question was answered with was that he didn't get a choice to lose.

=O=

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and I hope you enjoyed Chapter 6. I'll try to get out Chapter 7 soon, and don't worry. All questions will be answered. Wait... Scratch that, all relevant questions will be answered in time, but until next time Black Flames out!


	7. The Light of Hate

Hey Guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and this is Chapter 7. There will be some hints today at what the second secret is. So yeah. Go enjoy Jaune beat Cardin's ass. Or vice versa. Totally making this up as I go. Let's read!

Also, side note, if Jaune seems a bit off on what you would normally assume what Jaune would be like, there's three ways so far that I write him. Legacy Jaune, when discussing family or war, Macho Jaune, A.K.A The Jaune that would ask Weiss out, fake confidence, try to train on his own. That Jaune is less present, but is still there in some parts. Finally we have our Classic Jaune that we all know and love. Known for dresses, small confidence and making fun ways of asking out people who's names begin with W. So yeah... props to you if you read this. Enjoy!

=O=

**Chapter 7**

**The Light of Hate**

_"Nothing's perfect, the world's not perfect. But it's there for us, trying the best it can; that's what makes it so damn beautiful." ~Hiromu Arakawa_

=O=

Jaune soon entered Combat Class, and when doing so went straight to Professor Goodwitch to set up the fight. After a minute of convincing before the class, they, with Cardin appearing to help convince Professor Goodwitch to allow him to bash Jaune's brains in, somehow convinced the blonde professor to set up the fight.

"Alright then, if you both want it that badly-" said Professor Goodwitch as the duo stood next to each other with a look of dislike in their eyes.

"We do!" said the duo at the same time.

"... then after this match, you shall fight. Now for the next match... Ms. Xiao Long vs Ms. Valkryie.

"Hell yeah!" said the duo, high-fiving each other, with Professor Goodwitch sighing. Three straight minute of explosions later the duo were stuck in their own craters laughing at their masterpieces of an arena, or what was left of it as craters were scattered across the combat arena, while Glynda sighed as she fixed the arena. There was a clear look on Professor Goodwitch's face as she fixed it._ One of these days..._

"...Alright then, Jaune Arc vs Cardin Winchester." said the professor as Cardin made his way to the arena, while Jaune was being held back by his friends.

"Jaune, you know you don't have to do this. You know that Cardin won't hold back." said Pyrrha, worried for Jaune. So far in his Beacon carrier, he's done nothing but lose in his battles. The only time he's won was during the Nevermore fight.

"I'm alright Pyr, I can handle myself." said Jaune with a smile.

"Unless you have a secret weapon that could floor him, I'm not sure that you can win..." said Yang as she rejoined the group.

"Oh I do. Want to know what it is? Wait, scratch that. It'll be a surprise." said Jaune as he walked off with curious looks staring at the back of his head. This was going to be fun.

"Good luck Jaune!" said Ruby, wishing her first friend at Beacon luck. Jaune smiled, before making his way to the arena. Cardin and Jaune were prepared, so they had already donned their armor and weapons.

"I hope you can back up your words Jaune or this'll be fast, even for your standards." said Cardin with a smirk.

"Oh don't worry about me Cardin, I'd worry about yourself if I were you. I'm not holding back, so I hope you don't either." retorted Jaune with a smile. After a second the starting bell sounded, and Cardin rushed Jaune, hoping to end the match early with a knock to the head, but Jaune was prepared and had his shield ready to block the attack, knocking him back a few inches but otherwise leaving him undamaged while Jaune muttered under his breath.

"What was that Jaune? I couldn't hear you. Was it the sound of you surrendering?" taunted Cardin.

"Sorry, I said 'Is that all?'. Cause if it is, then you're all talk. Hit me Cardin, and this time not like your grandma." retorted Jaune with a smile on his face, with the desired effect occuring as Cardin rushed Jaune with another attack, this one augmented with Aura. Jaune blocked again, with even a block taking a small chunk of his aura.

"Come on Cardin, if this is it then all the Faunus that you've unrightfully bullied among the years can sleep easy knowing you couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag." said Jaune, further provoking Cardin. He was met with another Aura enhanced hit to the shield, taking a slightly larger chunk of his aura out. Right now, the aura tracker said that he was at 70% going down slowly but surely while Cardin was at 60% with each hit taking a good chunk of his aura. This was going to be fun.

=O=

"What's Jaune doing? He hasn't swung once and all he's done is provoke Cardin!" said Yang in disbelief as they watched the match.

"True, but he is winning. Sometimes the best offense is a great defence." said Pyrrha wisely as Jaune took another hit, with both aura pools lowering.

"I guess you're right, but why bother provoking Cardin?" asked Yang, with this time Ruby answering.

"You should know Yang, when someone's angered to a point where they can't even think straight, they become that much weaker. Attacks become sloppy, more mistakes are made. But it makes me wonder what he's waiting for. He's had a lot of chances by now to take advantage of this, but all he's doing it further provoking him..." said Ruby as they continued to watch

=O=

"Tell me Cardin, why do you bully? Why do you hate the faunus?" asked Jaune in a hushed voice where only Cardin could here.

"Who wouldn't hate those freaks? They don't-" said Cardin before Jaune cut him off.

"Don't give me that garbage. What happened? Did someone get hurt because of a faunus, or were you too weak to save someone and it was because of a faunus? Tell me." said Jaune with his voice hardened as he stared Cardin in the eyes. Hate stared back. It was at this point that Jaune knew he pushed the wrong buttons. Cardin swung hard, knocking him off balance with his shield flying out of his hand, before Cardin's mace made friends with Jaune's gut, knocking him to the ground and creating a crater. He heard voices for a moment as he tried to get up.

=O=

Team RWBY and JNPR bar J were in disbelief as they saw Cardin hit Jaune into the ground, immediately taking Jaune down from 50% to 1%, deep into the red zone ending the match, while Cardin went from his 40% to 30%. They started to get up as Glynda called the match before they saw Jaune start to get up.

"Why are you calling the match, it's not over." said Jaune as he leaned on his sword, coughing up some blood from the hit.

"Mr. Arc you are clearly in the red, and by that standard this match is over!" said Professor Goodwitch as she rushed to the arena.

"Sorry Professor, but that's where your wrong." said Jaune as he released a wave of dark black aura with a shout, which returned him from 1% back to 100% very quickly. But that's not what shocked the people there. It was that Jaune's left eye had become black, while still retaining his blue iris.

"Now if play time is over, let's continue the match" said Jaune in a darker tone, not even bothering to pick up his shield that had been knocked away. In a flash, Jaune had sprinted to Cardin's side, hitting him in the gut which knocked him into the wall, creating a small crater.

"Cardin, before you go to sleep, do me a favor and remember to answer my question when you wake up." said Jaune dryly as he took a look at the aura reader, with Cardin at 11% and Jaune now at 75% and rapidly declining. Jaune lightly kicked Cardin and he entered the red, ending the match. Professor Goodwitch took Cardin and called the infirmary, while Jaune walked out of the arena, and was subsequently swarmed by his friends.

"Wow Jaune, how did you do that?" asked Yang.

"See, I told you guys that Jaune could win!" said Ruby with enthusiasm.

"You took quite a hit, are you sure your alright." said Pyrrha worryingly.

"Nah, I'm in immense pain right now. The Dark Aura didn't do anything in terms of healing that hit. In fact, I'm surprised that I'm even standing right n-" Jaune as he fainted onto the ground, with a small trickle of blood coming from his mouth, freaking out his friends.

=O=

"Ugh... I feel like I was by a train... What did I do last night?" asked Jaune to himself as he opened his eyes, to where he has a sling on his right arm and a horrible feeling in the pit of his gut. Oh yeah... The Cardin fight... Jaune sighed as he remembered that he'd have to explain that to his friends later. It would take quite a lie to appease them...

"Jaune! You're awake!" said Pyrrha, who had been tiredly watching in the corner with a sleeping Ruby, who had woken up from Pyrrha's outburst.

"Good morning Pyrrha, so why am I in the infirmary?" asked Jaune tiredly, not remembering the match that he had just participated in.

"You were in a match against Cardin and you fainted after the battle. Turns out that the hit Cardin landed against you cracked a few ribs as well as you were nearing zero in terms of aura so they put you in here." explained Pyrrha.

"Oh yeah... That was a thing..." said Jaune, remembering the match.

"I'm going to go tell our friends!" said Ruby, who then ran out the room.

"Ruby wait- Damn... Pyrrha, I know you have questions but do me a favor. Make sure that they don't rush in, try to delay them. I'm still very low in terms of Aura and I'm not sure I can take an 'interrogation' from Yang." said Jaune, shuddering at the thought of what Yang can do when she's curious about something.

"I suppose your-" replied Pyrrha, getting up only to be knocked back down as the door was slammed open by their group of friends. Yang and Nora went straight to Jaune, with his secret move on their minds with the others being interested and the only one not caring was Blake, who was reading a book as Yang and Nora attempted to get information out of him.

"Wow Jaune, how did you do that cool aura move! You went so fast and hit Cardin so hard!" said Nora as Yang started to shake Jaune.

"How did you do that? Tell me your secret!" said Yang with hunger in her eyes, a hunger for power.

"If. You. Will. Stop. Shaking. Me. I. Will!" said Jaune, getting a word in between shakes before Yang realized what she was doing.

"Sorry..." said Yang, scratching the back of her head in embarrassment. The others gathered around, prepared to listen to Jaune's story of his technique.

"Alright, now that I'm not being throttled I can tell you about my technique, however you'll need to recall Professor Stein or whichever Aura Professor you had's lesson on the types of Aura." said Jaune as they remembered.

=O=

"Alright class, let's get down to the truth of aura and it's many types. There are many variations of Aura, but if you had to count exactly how many types there are in general, there would be exactly 9 types that you can have, but truthfully there are 11. We will get to that later. Now, can anyone tell me the first type group of Aura?" asked Professor Stein, with Ren raising his hand and answering.

"It is known as the Basic Group, and it consists of the Red Aura, Blue Aura and Yellow Aura." said Ren.

"Excellent, now the Basic Group is generally what you would think. It's fairly basic and it is the least advanced aura group you can have." said the teacher, earning some groans from some of the students, who had likely been in that group.

"As I was saying, it is the least advanced Aura group. But there are some benefits in this group. Most people in this can easily unlock their semblance and further develop it much faster, but we will talk about semblances later. Also, generally speaking these group tend to have more simple effects that can easily be trained, such as going faster, hitting stronger, etc. Think of it as this. It's generally weaker to everything else initially, but you can train it much faster and easier so if you work hard enough it can surpass other semblances much easier. Now, does anyone know the next group?" asked the Professor with a person in the back raising their hand.

"I think it's called the Combination Group, and it consists of purple, orange and green." said the student.

"Good, now the advanced group is also how it would seem. It is generally more advanced as you can get stronger effects from the aura itself, but generally speaking most people with this type of aura have less of it than others. For example, people in the Purple Group are generally known to have a glyph-like semblance but it's not always guarantee. The Orange Group is known for fire manipulation and effects that are fire-like. Finally, The Green Group is not generally known for it's semblance, but rather it's ability to use aura in outwards strikes, sending aura in attacks towards opponents from their body and it is very effective in terms of damage. But, you are generally limited in the amount of aura you have to begin with. However, I'm know that Madame Goodwitch, who has a purple types aura has a method to increase how much aura you have, and this applies to all aura types so go see her if you want to know, but I think that she will be teaching that to you soon anyway. So now, who knows the final group of Aura?" asked the teacher, with Blake raising her hand.

"It is known as the Advanced Group and it houses Pink, Brown and Silver." said Blake.

"Excellent Ms. Belladonna, however there is a small fun fact about this group. It used to hold Pink, Brown, Silver and Gray, but the Aura researchers decided to include Gray and Silver into the same type, not that I agree. Anyways... these are the most advanced groups that normal people can have, with Silver always guaranteeing a Glyph Semblance, Gray generally having a Semblance relating to deception, Pink generally relating to Lightning or other explosion-like effects, and Brown having a unique effect. Brown has the ability to, and I quote, do what ever it wants. It can use any of the effects of the prementioned colors as a semblance, minus gray and silver, making it a great ability. The only downside is that it requires a lot of focus and energy to use these effects, but if you use them they can be the most deadly ones mentioned so far. Now, does anyone know of the last two types?" asked the Professor, to which after a minute of mumbling from the students trying to find the answer Jaune rose his hand.

"I believe it is White and Black sir." said Jaune.

"Excellent Mr. Arc, excellent. Now, these two types are in a unique category. These are known as the Holy Group. Generally speaking, this group is almost unique to one family in history and it is the Arc family. There have been cases of non-Arc's having this semblance but it is not my place to say. Now, these are officially known as Holy White and Devil Black. Both of these can result in Aura Creation semblances, but so far it has only been shown to be in the Arc families. Both of these groups can also use any of the prementioned semblances as their own, but again it is only one and they generally cannot choose. There are also some effects from simply having these types of Aura. The Holy White type is unique as it has an increased regeneration factor and the ability to heal others, which is why it is often referred to as holy. Now, the Devil Black Aura type is also unique as it is the only type of aura that cannot shield or heal damage done to the body, but it can easily destroy other aura as well as make the person wielding this ability stronger in nearly all aspects. So far, in recorded history, only Noir Arc has been shown to wield this, but I doubt that she is the only one. Now, are there any questions?" asked the teacher, looking around before spotting a lone hand.

"I have a question, is it possible to mix aura types or perhaps change?" asked the student.

"Oh, that's a fun question. Here's a fun answer. No and Yes. It is absolutely impossible for a man to have two or more different types of aura as that would hint of having two souls in one body as it is impossible for a man to have two types in one soul. Now, there is a way to change your aura type but I would never recommend it. This is extremely dangerous and is likely to kill you. If you go through a traumatizing event, enough so that you will be changed forever, your soul may change to reflect onto what had happened. However, it is deadly for the reason that your body may reject the new aura, and the old aura residing in your body will attempt to destroy the other aura and this can cause damage to your body until there is only one type left and generally after that the damage done to the inside of your body is usually enough to kill you. Isn't that fun? Now, class should be ending in a few seconds so have a good day and heed my warning!" said the teacher as the class ended and the students shuffled out quietly at the deathly news.

=O=

"So what does that have to do with you?" asked Yang, getting out of the flashback.

"Well, us Arcs have a fun trick. This is a smaller part, so miniscule in comparison to the other, of the Third Trumpcard. All I can say is that once an Arc runs out of his or her aura, provided that they have a certain secret unlocked and used, they can use this neat trick. Once I run out of Aura, which mine is Holy White, I can call upon Devil Black to which I can use it as I wish. Unfortunately for me it doesn't heal my wounds so Cardin's hit to the stomach still applied and I only lasted long enough to finish the fight was because of adrenaline." said Jaune.

"That seems pretty powerful..." said Pyrrha.

"Oh, it has a drawback. Even if it was a life or death situation, right now I can't call upon this Aura, and it's unlikely I will be able to for quite some time, it could take a day for the smallest of functions and up to a week for it to be back to normal so in a fight it's a one time thing and it greatly exhausts me. Not that it would matter if it is a one time thing as generally if I'm using it I'm on the ropes." said Jaune, explaining it.

"That seems fair..." said Ruby.

"Now, I have a question for you, and it is of upmost importance." said Jaune seriously, shocking everyone in the room for a moment.

"What is it?" asked Pyrrha.

"How long was I out for?" asked Jaune, to which everyone facepalmed before releasing a few laughs at how funny the blond could be.

"You've been out for a day now, so you'll need to catch up. However, the field trip to Forever Falls is tomorrow and I don't think that the doctors will allow you to stay here when you're healthy again and at full aura." said Yang, pointing to the monitor showing that Jaune was healthy again.

"Oh yeah... I have a question. How did you guys get here so fast? I thought Ruby and Pyrrha were the only one here." said Jaune in wonder.

"Oh, we were coming to visit as classes had already ended but Pyrrha somehow convinced the doctors to allow her to stay here until you woke up. They allowed it, and earlier I snuck in here and I haven't been discovered yet." said Ruby happily.

"That's good to see I have such good friends. But speaking of visitors, did anyone visit me when I was out?" asked Jaune worriedly.

"Velvet came in here and did something with her aura on you before leaving and your sister Verta showed up for a few minutes, before typing something into her scroll and walking away. She told us that you need to catch up for your classes or she was going to call someone on you, I think she said it was Ange, but I'm not sure..." said Pyrrha, recounting the visits.

"Oh god... Hopefully she hasn't done anything rash yet, I don't want to unleash that storm yet..." said Jaune in fear, worrying his friends, before cheering up.

"It should be alright, now I'm going to go check up with the doctors but you guys should leave." said Jaune.

"Why?" asked Ruby.

"I'm going to need to change out of this gown and I can't do it with you guys here, can I?" said Jaune rhetorically, with a small blush from Pyrrha and Ruby, with Yang acting as if to say a perverted comment before Ruby rushed her out of the room with the rest following in toll. As Blake closed the door, Jaune pulled out a white feather, before smiling that his secret was safe for another day.

=O=

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was a bit rushed so if there are any errors, forgive me. Also, '_The Misadventures of Roman and Neo_' isn't a one-shot. It's just random stories I come up with involving the criminal gang, so yeah. Be prepared. Black Flames out!


	8. A Life Changed

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and this is Chapter 8. I wonder if any of you guessed what Jaune's second secret is yet... Meh, keep it a secret, besides you could be wrong.

**Chapter has been updated. Please re-read for new information. Next Chapter will be out 2/3 or 2/4 and RIP Monty**

=O=

Time for review shoutouts:

**CrimsonHeresy**: You are dangerously close to it, but no cigar just yet. I am writing a story about Angel!Jaune now though, so thanks for the idea!

**WarMach1ne32**: I understand that you may be doubting my claims on weapons, but just you wait. Trust me, it'll be a hell of a weapon and you'll know why.

**AndreiN00B**: Right now, this story can deviate into two paths, a path of life and happiness and a path of death and destruction, and it's all up to Jaune's use of the Third Trump. It can destroy all of humanity, or save it. UNFORTUNATELY THOUGH, he isn't able to use it just yet so you're safe until further notice.

Guest: Thank you for noticing that Mors ends every weapon, as it means death in latin. In fact, all the weapon names are like that, i.e. red death, blue death...

**Joae12**: I'm sorry but I've never watched Fate/Stay Night far enough to know what that is, but thanks for appreciating the idea.

**Supermarshmallow**: Trust me, it's more advanced that a simple back up. In fact, it was more of a hint than anything. Also to kick Cardin's ass. Everyone likes to kick ass.

One more thing, I'm going to be more blatant in the second secret, as I will release what it is on either Chapter 10 or 11, depending if I can write it well enough. Either way, if you were watching close enough, you can make a fairly valid guess on what the guess is, I've been throwing hints out since day one... Now, let's begin the story!

=O=

**Chapter 8:**

**A Life Changed**

"_Life is fickle. One day you're the king of the world, the next you're running for your life. But what are you going to do? C'est la vie." ~Nero Fiammes_

=O=

"Wow... this is amazing!" said Jaune as he walked into the Forever Falls with his teammates as the crimson leaves fell. Not much had happened after waking up the day before, so he had gone to the Professor and told him that he was fit to go. The Professor was happy, and Jaune & Co had prepared for the field trip. Sure, it stole time away from his other classes but if this view was what he would see, he wouldn't mind.

"It's almost unbelievable that this place is infested to the neck with Grimm..." said Ruby. The only reason that some business hadn't snapped up this wonderful place was that it was completely filled with Grimm. The Grimm that were their varied from Rapier Wasps to Ursa, to even a few A Rank Grimm. Fortunately for the students, the deadlier Grimm stayed to the night, unless you were stupid enough to wake them up. The only real risk was the trees themselves. Or rather the sap in them. It happened to hold properties that Ursa seem to love, perhaps they found it sweet... He didn't know, but hopefully their wouldn't be any run ins.

"Alright class, please gather the sap for Professor Peach and we will be on our way. If you don't know how to get sap, ask me or watch someone else." said Professor Goodwitch as she walked off to the V-TOL, likely to make sure it didn't leave without them. Even Professor Goodwitch would have trouble surviving a night in here. There's a reason it hasn't been conquered yet...

"Hmm..." Jaune looked around and saw a few things. Some of the other teams had already started to work near the clearing, which was good. If you're fighting something like an Ursa, you need to be able to move. Team RWBY was starting to work, and work well. His own team had already started and Nora was destroying any success we could have and it seems that Team CRDL had walked off on their own.

"You know, it's a shame that Professor Peach came down with Aura Flu, she'd been ecstatic about this..." said Pyrrha offhandedly. The thing that sucks about Aura Flu is you don't know you have it until you can't even use a little of your aura. It was a thing that could kill a Hunter in the wild. That was the reason that she couldn't go. She'd be alright in a few days but she couldn't go as it would risk her own life, as well as spreading the virus to the students and they didn't want an epidemic on their hands.

Jaune smiled as he started the tapping process. It was also a small blessing that almost no-one came here, as the trees would always be filled to the brim with the delicious sap. It even had aura refilling properties, which he wouldn't mind having one or two around. It does make you a bit **hyper** active to everything, but fortunately you wouldn't crash from it. But, it did make everything a bit faster, and with Nora drinking that much, it couldn't be good. Jaune saluted as he saw his friend attacked by the wild Nora. He would be missed.

"Nora. Sit." Ren commanded, with Nora sitting, whilst giggling about something involving castles and ambrosia... Good luck Ren. It put a smile on Jaune's face to see his team interacting well, speaking of which.

"...And that's how you tap a tree!" said Jaune as he finished collecting the sap from the tree. There was one person who didn't know how to tap a tree on his team.

"Thank you Jaune, I don't know what I'd do without you." said Pyrrha.

"Not get the assignment done? I'm just glad to see that little miss champion has a weakness, and it's trees. Remind me to grab a log the next time we spar." said Jaune jokingly, earning a small laugh from Pyrrha. It was a nice thing to hear.

"You didn't look like the type to know how to tap trees Jaune, I'm surprised." said Pyrrha.

"Well, I wouldn't have if it wasn't for my grandpa. He was a man's man. He once told me he wrestled an Ursa into submission with his bare hands. He was a nature man, he'd always take me out and teach me a thing or two about nature. He was a good man..." said Jaune, recalling his Grandpa. He was a good man, he looked just like Jaune, but older and with a beard. You could barely tell that he was a grandparent at all. Another crazy thing about his family... It seems that color skips a generation as so far, all the family heads hair color skipped a generation, with Noire being case and point.

"I would love to meet him someday..." said Pyrrha, thinking about the man.

"I'll wish you luck then, he wasn't the type of man to sit in one place for more than a few days, maybe a week at top. Last time I checked, he was climbing a mountain near our home..." said Jaune as he recalled the last letter that he had sent him.

"I guess we're done then, we have our sap, Nora doesn't look like she'll take any more and we have maybe ten or so more jars for pancakes in case Ren wants to treat us. Are you ready to head to the ship?" asked Pyrrha as Jaune looked around. Most of the students had already left for the V-TOL but there was a certain team that Jaune hadn't seen return and he had a feeling in the pit of his gut that he knew why.

"Sure, you guys go on ahead, I'll be back in a minute..." said Jaune as he walked towards where Team CRDL had last been. Sure, their leader probably didn't think of him too fondly but he had a feeling in the pit of his mind that they were probably doing something stupid...

"AAAH! URSA!" said one of Cardin's teammates as he ran past. Surely one Ursa couldn't scare a team of training huntsmen, could it? Jaune ran towards where the teammate ran away from with his sword drawn out to see that it was reasonable that the team was scared away. This was an Ursa Major. Rank B Grimm that could prove troublesome to anyone who didn't have a sword made out of fire as they had extremely tough Aura, especially around their neck.

"Oh no..." Jaune saw that the Team Leader of CRDL, who was now alone thanks to his awesome teammates, was about to be eaten by the Ursa Major. There was sap on him, and thanks to it's sticky substance which had gotten onto his weapon, preventing it from being drawn, he was defenseless.

"CARDIN MOVE!" said Jaune as a paw came down. Cardin snapped out of his trance and managed to jump out of the way just in the nick of time as the tree was crushed from the blow. Did he mention that an Ursa Major could probably stop a train with it's pure power. Definitely not something you want to go head on with.

"Come on you stupid-" said Cardin, trying to draw his weapon again, with an anger in his eyes. Still no luck. He hadn't payed attention and was grazed by another hit from the Ursa, hitting his leg. Even with it grazing, it still hit Cardin's leg hard. It was a miracle that it wasn't broken, but it was dislocated. Not that that would matter as he couldn't walk anymore and the Ursa went to finish it's kill. Cardin closed his eyes as the paws came down.

Only they never did.

"What... Jaune?! Why are you helping me?!" said Cardin in disbelief as Jaune blocked a hit from the Ursa with his shield. Sure, the shield couldn't be broken, it doesn't mean his arm won't be.

"Cardin! Do something or get out of the way!" said Jaune as his arm held against the blow. This Ursa was not giving him any room and his arm felt like it was going to buckle.

"Got it!" Cardin grabbed his second jar filled with the Forever Fall sap, he had back up plans for stuff like this knowing his luck, and threw it at the Ursa with Aura assisting him. The jar shattered on it's head, with the glass harmlessly bouncing off while the real purpose of the throw stayed. There was sap on the Grimm's eyes, blinding it as no matter what it could, sap plus fur equals the fact that it's not getting out.

"Time to end this!" Jaune swung his sword at the Ursa Major. Even with it's armor, it wouldn't be able to stop an aura enhanced hit from Crocea Mors. Except there was something that he didn't account for.

"Oh not now!" Jaune saw in horror as the Grimm managed to narrowly dodge his swing and in a blind frenzy start to bring down it's arm onto where Jaune's was. If that connected, they'd be as good as dead. But there was nothing that Jaune could-

"Jaune go!" Cardin through his mace, which he had pried free with his aura and threw it at the Ursa, hitting it's head, making the beast roar in anger and in pain. Jaune turned his sword and went in for another swing.

"Let's go!" Jaune lurched forward as he went in to finish the fight with a decapitation when the beast lurched back again. Only this time, fate would have a different result.

=O=

"Where is Jaune, did he run into trouble?" asked Pyrrha as Ruby and Weiss followed her to where they saw Jaune disappeared. Ruby tagged along as she worried about her first friend while Weiss was dragged along with Ruby.

"Knowing him, he's probably sleeping in an Ursa den..." said Weiss, imagining the blond doing just that. Let it be known that Weiss didn't mind Jaune, as he didn't flirt with her because of her name or bother her too much, but he still attempted to go out with her. As long as his advances were slow, she didn't mind. He also knew how to accept 'No'... for about a week. That said, it stopped some people from hitting on her for some reason, so she approved of it. That's why she didn't put much of a protest of coming along as having people not hitting on her was nice.

"URSA!" said Russel Thrush, a team member of Team CRDL and Cardin's partner with Cardin no where to be seen. Ruby and Pyrrha stared blankly at Weiss, wondering if she knew where Jaune was to start off or it was a random guess. They would never know as they rushed towards the Ursa. Thirty seconds later, they were at the clearing, but they hadn't entered it yet. Then they saw the Ursa Major looming over Jaune with its paws pushing Jaune's shield, with Cardin behind him trying to free his mace. He wouldn't last long.

"We need to go save-" said Ruby before Weiss stopped them.

"Why are you-" said Pyrrha before being cut off by Weiss.

"Let's wait until they are in trouble. I want to see what Jaune can do." said Weiss, studying Jaune. Her efforts were rewarded as Cardin grabbed a jar of sap and threw it at the Ursa. The jar shattered on it's face and the Grimm reeled back from the hit, trying to free it's now blinded eyes.

"See, I told you he didn't need our-" said Weiss smugly before realizing Jaune's mistake. He threw out the attack but the Grimm in a blind frenzy back up in an attempt to free it's face of the sugary residue, causing him to miss. The Grimm then brought down it's paws, somehow sensing that the blonde was just within reach.

"Jaune-" Pyrrha had been cut off as he saw a mace fly square into the Grimm, knocking it off balance for a second ending it's attack prematurely. Jaune then tried to swing again from the other side, only for the Grimm to leap back preemptively as the attack started. He would miss again and that would end Jaune Arc. Or at least seriously injure him.

"We need to-" Ruby was cut off as they heard a metallic noise and Jaune's sword grew an extra foot and had a black aura, to which it managed to hit the Grimm right in the next before the duo disappeared in a flash of light. They shielded their eyes for what seemed like eternity but in reality as mere moments and then they saw the aftermath.

"What was that?!" said Weiss in shock as the light faded and Jaune was leaning on his sword, with something in his hand. He put whatever it was in his pocket before getting up and grabbing the mace from the ground and handing it to Cardin, saying a few words before handing it to him. Cardin nodded and Jaune collapsed against the tree, exhausted from what he had done.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha rushed over to her partner with happiness. She was glad that she didn't need to help him kill the Grimm with her ability. No matter how brave and cocky he may seem at times, that was only when he was helping someone else. When it came to his own self confidence, it was lack luster. He probably wouldn't take it well that he couldn't do it himself. But now that that hurdle was passed, they could enjoy their ride back to Beacon.

"Hey guys, I guess you saw that... I hope you're impressed with my bad luck, I had to use a trick to beat it, but in the end no one got hurt... too badly. Please don't punch me in the right arm as it just took a hit from the Ursa and that thing can hit like a truck. Wait, scratch that it can hit like a truck on steroids." said Jaune, earning a few laughs from Pyrrha and Ruby.

"I'm sorry you had to save my sorry ass Jaune, I was messing around with the sap and I spilled it onto my holster and I couldn't defend myself. My bad." said Cardin, bitterly, while looking at his weapon which was still covered in sap.

"It's alright Cardin, everyone makes mistakes sometimes. I make mine when I'm in a life or death situation as you just saw." said Jaune smiling as he helped Cardin up and helped him walk.

"What was that move? It's like nothing I've ever seen! It's just like that time when you used it against the Nevermore..." said Weiss in fascination. One thing she loved is learning more on how to beat her opponents and learning their tricks helped. That, and it took down an Ursa Major in one hit and that was no easy feat. Especially since the last time he had used it he took down the Giant Nevermore in one hit.

"I was hoping to save that little trick as a secret, but I guess I can tell you a little about it. All I'll say is that I need to make contact to wherever the neck is on the Grimm with it and the battle is over, but I can only use it so many times before it becomes detrimental, now let's get back to the ship..." said Jaune as the group walked back to the ship.

"Hey guys, how's it going? Don't mind me, the leader you ditched who was weaponless against a Grimm, how are you doing?" asked Cardin with venom dripping from his tone as his leg's pain reminded him of the teams betrayal. The remainder of his team sweatdropped as Russel tried to save them.

"Uh... we were going to get help! Yeah, we were going to go get teachers but it seems you handled it yourself. You're the best!" said Russel in an attempt to appease their angry leader. Only Monty would know what he would do when he's like this. Or them in this case.

"Oh really? That's awesome. But we shouldn't need to bother the teachers with our small problems, like being mauled by a Grimm. In fact, I have an idea that's going to help out everyone! Starting today, we're waking up an hour early and heading to the training room and find robots that we're ready for, and set it a level higher!" said Cardin with a wicked grin, earning some whines from his teammates before his glare shut it down. It was all laughs for the team as they flew home... until Jaune remembered about his motion sickness. It was a miracle that he didn't get sick on the flight here but he was not blessed with such fortune again on the return.

Soon they made their way back to Beacon, where Jaune's arm got inspected and deemed fit enough to go without any treatment while Cardin's leg had to popped back into place. The screams of pain were heard throughout Beacon and some reported it as a girl screaming in pain. Other than that, all was peaceful until that very same night.

=O=

"I'm glad you could show up Cardin, how's the leg?" asked Jaune as he sat on the rooftop. He had managed to convince Pyrrha that they didn't need to train today, and Pyrrha agreed to let him have the day off since he defeated a B-Rank Grimm on his own.

"It still stings a bit, but I'll live. Why did you want us to meet up here?" asked Cardin.

"You never did answer my question Cardin and I'm a man of answers. If you still won't answer, I'll be fine but I think you need to get this off of your chest. But what happened, why do you dislike faunus to this extent?" asked Jaune. Cardin looked conflicted for a moment, but he eventually gave in.

"You will tell no-one of this Jauney-boy, got that?" said Cardin, to which Jaune nodded. Cardin sat against the wall and began.

"Let's start off with this, as hard as it is to believe, I'm not a total asshole who hates every faunus that I see." said Cardin.

"I could've gone a while longer without knowing, continue." said Jaune as he listened to the story.

"Well my parents, CEO's of Winchester Weapons, weren't exactly the most pro-faunus people in the world. Hell, at one point they tried to reason with them but a protest got violent and that ended the sympathy from pops." said Cardin.

"Speaking of Faunus's, one day while my parent's were out of town I made a discovery. I was walking through a park, minding my own business when a couple thugs, not unlike me as I was, were attacking a poor girl, yelling slander. I shouted at them and apparently they got startled off. Maybe they recognized me or perhaps they though I was going to call the cops, I don't know. I went over to her and after looking at the bruises and cuts, I noticed a pair of ears. Particularly of the rabbit variety." said Cardin. Jaune didn't say anything so he continued.

"After patching her up, because I had bandages at the time in a bag I was carrying because it never hurts to be prepared. So anyways, cute girl with cute ears looked shocked that a human not only stood up for her, but helped her out of the goodness of her heart. At that moment, with tears in her eyes, I swore I would never be like my parents in the fact that I would endorse such violence for old grudges." said Cardin.

"I can get behind that. This is our generation, we need to stop holding grudges we never held." said Jaune with a smile.

"Anyways, apparently we kicked it off and became friends. She didn't mind that I was a human, let alone the future CEO of a anti-Faunus company, and I didn't mind that she was a faunus that for all I could've known been a White Fang member. So anyways, we'd hang out whenever I could. Sure, we didn't really know if the other couldn't show up, but we tried to show up whenever we could at that same park." said Cardin, looking less and less like the racist they all knew and loved.

"So what happened?" asked Jaune curiously.

"If you've give my a second Jauney-boy, I'll get to that. I didn't know you were so impatient. So anyways, we'd go every day to a park, to hang out and stuff. Somehow, my parents got word of what I was doing. Maybe it was some ass who followed me for a few days, maybe they noticed my disappearances. I don't know. Needless to say, they weren't happy." said Cardin, getting to the nitty gritty.

"So, one day they sat me down and interrogated me. Like how long had I known that scum, what was our relationship. Did I treat her like she was supposed to be treated. I was a fool back then, I thought that I could change them with me being nice to one faunus. They kicked me, they slapped me. They even threatened to orphan me if I even thought about making a return trip to the faunus. Not gonna lie, I didn't like it one bit. I hated them for controlling me, telling me what I could and couldn't like, or hate in that matter. But I was a coward, I let them have their way." said Cardin ashamed.

"So then what?" asked Jaune interested.

"Well, one day I decided I wanted to be a huntsman. To you know, protect the innocent and all that jazz. Turns out that my parents were okay with it, as being a hunter is like being your own personal bodyguard. I trained for a few years, and I became the manly man you see before you. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to return to that park, even if they were away. They always had someone watching, and I never could walk back. Flash forward a few years and I'm at Beacon. Good for me!" said Cardin with fake enthusiasm.

"Then, I get with Sky and the rest of Team CRDL. Good men, easily influenced though. Not much courage either. No offense to them, but I probably would've done better with some people who had some backbone. I'm gonna need to fix that with that with them later. Though finally, we reach the conclusion to this story. Just last week I was minding my own business, terrorizing some nerds, cause you know it's a bit fun seeing them look at me in fear, though they are at a school trained for hunters. They should probably be able to handle themselves. Anyways... I was walking through the library and I saw that there was a certain rabbit faunus reading. I came over and learned it was the same chick from before, Velvet Scarlatina." said Cardin.

"Then why-" said Jaune before he was cut off.

"Getting to that. Anyways, you know how your parents are your legal guardians and have control over you until you're 18, right? Well, I know that if they caught wind that I wasn't being a racist, rather being friends, I'd probably be on the first ship to Hell, or rather I call it my home. There, I would be stuck learning about how to be a dirty CEO, all their tricks. I never was a fan of that kind of stuff so I came up with a plan. I stuck a note in her book and pulled her ears, openly messing with her. She looked at me with shock for a moment and sadness, trust me it cut deep but I had to prove that I still hated faunus. Sure, a few radicals killed a few relatives but they had it coming. Next day, she looks at me with a smile, she had read the note. We kept to a script, I never did anything too bad or permanent and we waited it out. Soon, we had a week maybe and I would've been 18. I would've been good, but then the unbelievable happened." said Cardin.

"Did they find out?" asked Jaune.

"No you idiot, you happened. You did what no one else did, you stood up for Velvet. I mean, your cousins but still. Anyways, this was a flaw in my plans. I had to do some more 'acting' and fight you. Sure, I mopped the floor with you, and then you me but it got the point across. Everything was working out. Even Velv's team was gone for a while. They had gone on a few solo missions as you can do those whenever once you graduate year two. That left Velv all alone, which was a shame. She could never bring it to herself to defend herself. Shame about that. Anyways, I mess up in the Forever Falls, and you save my ass. You were the only one to see through my facade. I won't ask how, but I will tell you that you did good. Perhaps in a different world, you would've ignored me and left me to my fate or even I was the one bullying you. I don't know, I'm not a philosopher, I'm just a guy with a mace. A good mace. Any questions?" asked Cardin as he finished his tale before waiting for Jaune.

"Why are you telling me this so openly? I would have accepted an answer that was simply that you had a plan and you had no ill intentions, but why are you telling me your life story?" asked Jaune.

"If you'll take a look at the date, you'll notice it's 12/01. That's a good date to remember. Now another thing to know is I was born on the first of the last, or 12/01. Today is my 18th birthday and the day I can stop living a lie. Maybe I can even get my teammates to follow my lead of being cool with everyone. I mean, I'll still be an asshole every once in a while, but that's a given. All that matters is that I'm free from my family's hate. Long Live Freedom!" said Cardin, pumping his fist in the air as Jaune followed suit.

"So you'll be cool with Velvet now?" asked Jaune.

"Dude, as cool as you can be with childhood friends. I mean, she's probably going to get even over the next few weeks but still. We will finally make it, and reclaim the lost time. Maybe I'll even get lucky and get into a relationship but that's thinking too far ahead. Just one thing to know, it seems that a lot of the racists in this generation seem to be from their parents. It seems it can sometimes be genetic to disregard others. But today is the day I'm free! Viva la Revolution!" said Cardin happily.

"Oh yeah... It's midnight. Goodwitch would rip us a new one if we get caught so I'm just going to sneak in through here, so good luck. Also, side note, I can totally here everything you say up here. There's only a thin ceiling between you and me, so yeah. Good luck with your girlfriend Lenore though, good night." said Cardin as he went into his dorm room through the window, laughing as he saw Jaune's blush. Today was a good day. Viva la Revolution!

=O=

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and I hope you liked the Chapter. I apologize for poor writing in this chapter. It is my fault and I will try to write them better. So yeah... My bad. I'll do better next time. I hope you liked it.


	9. An Electric Dream

RIP MONTY OUM

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and I'm glad to present to you, Chapter 9. I'm just gonna say this now, last chapter of suspense, and I'm going to be quite frank here, there's going to be quite a few hints. Obvious ones. If you've paid enough attention, you can see that something is off, and hopefully you'll notice! Now, last thing before we can begin, I see that people aren't pleased with the Cardin Redemption part of last chapter. Not gonna lie, it was pretty bad so I took time a day or two ago and polished it up as well as the Ursa scene as there were a few problems that you noticed. Finally, I'm just going to look at the reviews.

Also, I'll do chapter two of Misadventures when I get around to it as it's more of a side thing. Also, Chapter Two of TEAM DEATHMATCH! is going to be out tomorrow. So yeah. Start looking at the next part as it has quite a few bits of good info. Yeah...

=O=

**kamenheroHEISEI**: I'm sorry you didn't like the chapters and felt I was getting out of character. I took the time to polish up the lines and hopefully I'm up to your standard. I'll probably take some more time before the next chapter and fix that. So yeah. One last thing is that it's almost unmentionable because it's so obvious, Jaune is an OOC. It has to do with his 'second secret'. Also, I guess you could consider Cardin OOC, but I think it's believable. I'll work up some lines, but again maybe Cardin could be a good guy but his parents are racists and that translated over. So yeah. Thank you for leaving a review. :D

**spyro77**: Thank you for your review, I feel that everyone deserves redemption from their sins. Especially Cardin. After all, who says he just hates faunus out of spite in the show. Perhaps his parent's weren't a fan and he picked up on it, similar to Weiss.

**AndreiN00B**: I'm glad you appreciated the scenes, and the suggestion of music with it. I might consider adding optional music to this if I'm not too lazy.

**Warmach1ne32**: You would be correct in the fact that what happened in the Forever Falls was a part of his second ability, but it's more along the terms of the much weaker part of the third, but you could say it's also part of the second. Keep watching, perhaps I'll surprise you. (And no, Jaune is not a ghost. I would totally read a decent fanfic of that though. Also no throat punches. That would be too easy.)

Keep a close look as this is the last chapter before it's revealed. If you want to make a guess or comment, leave me a review. I love 'em. Also PM is you need to speak with me about the whole dead Monty thing. I'll be here. Writing. But I can speak with you if you need help. =D. Now start reading!

=O=

**Chapter 9**

**An Electric Dream**

"_A million things to say and a billion more to do. I'll poke my head up when I can." ~Monty Oum_

=O=

When the school had woken up the morning after the Forever Falls incident, they hadn't expected anything too grand to be occurring. Sure, there might be a small weapons mishap but they hadn't expected anything too big. Especially not as big as Cardin Winchester, known bully and racist walking and talking happily with Velvet Scarlatina, a faunus and one of Cardin's victims. No-one could believe it, except for a certain blond team leader as he watched his teammates and friends stare in confusion.

"Come on guys, it's not the end of the world." said Jaune as he ate his breakfast, which was just a waffle. He tried to convince his friends to join in on waffles in his little operation he got from a friend that they dubbed WAFFLE-O, but asides from Pyrrha and Ruby no one tried. It was a shame. Also Nora declared war on him. That would be fun to deal with...

"Are you kidding me Jaune, Cardin "The Racist" Winchester is acting like best friends with Velv over there! And you don't even look surprised! What's up with that? Do you have a secret to share with us?" asked Yang in suspicion.

"Oh you caught me, I'm a psychic. I'm just messing with you, but if you looked close enough you would've noticed something was off. I just got lucky and saw it. I bet you wish you could do that though Yang, just looking at a guy and knowing his deep dark secrets." said Jaune.

"So Jaune... What's up with you and Grimm? So far from what I know, every time you've fought a Grimm, it ended in an explosion of light. Why is that happening?" asked Yang, which made Jaune visibly flinch when he heard it.

"Uh... Look at the time, I need to-" said Jaune as he started to retreat, only for Yang to sit him back down again with a grin on her face.

"What's wrong Jaune? Is there something that we can't know about? Cause we're friends, and friends share secrets..." said Yang with her devilish smile.

"_I can't say... I could come up with a lie, but they'll see through it... Think Jaune think, what would distract them? What would make Yang back down? Come on... Clothes, Food, Fighting... Wait, the Vytal Festival!" _Jaune smiled as his mind came up with the solution.

"I'd love to Yang, but I'm saving that trick for the Vytal Festival. I don't want all my secret moves out before I begin, wouldn't I? So besides, are any of you competing?" asked Jaune, successfully changing the topic, much to Yang's displeasure.

"Team RWBY will! I already registered us for the qualifying rounds yesterday, how about you guys?" asked Ruby.

"I'll be participating, I went over to register yesterday and they took one look at me before saying that I didn't need to go to the qualifying rounds. That's unfortunate, but I guess I get to see you guys fight." said Pyrrha.

"Me and Ren will! We're going to be the best fighters there! Yay!" said Nora in happiness.

"I'll participate as well, I went to register the day before yesterday to make sure there was room for us. I wonder if we'll fight in the qualifying round..." said Jaune.

"Nope! We all have to make it to the tournament, so that means we can't fight in the qualifying round!" said Ruby with her classic grin.

"But-" Jaune started to protest but was shut down.

"Nope!" said Ruby, cutting off her icy companion.

"Ruby" Jaune tried to reason with her, and was cut off as well.

"Nope!" Ruby's smile didn't falter as she cut off Jaune as well.

"Fine, I give. You win." said Jaune in defeat, with his hands in the air.

"Yay!" Ruby celebrated her victory with her food of choice, a cookie. Seriously, it was a wonder that she wasn't getting sugar crashes every five minutes with the amount of cookies she ate. Maybe it had to do with her semblance...

"So... Since we don't have classes today, anyone up for going to Vale and enjoy the festivities?" asked Jaune, which was met with everyone agreeing. It was a good thing that the teachers decided to let the students have a day off to enjoy festivities. This was going well so far for Mission 'Make Everyone go to Vale and have fun!' He also had to thank Ruby for helping him come up with names for missions.

"Alright, I'll see you guys in a few minutes, I just need to grab a few things and I'll be on my way." said Jaune as he dumped his food and walked to the Team JNPR dorm room. After grabbing a few things, including his Crocea Mors, he walked back. Some would question why he didn't keep his weapon in his locker, but he wouldn't answer. It was just a pet peeve of his, after a few... incidents... He never left his weapon where he couldn't get to it after that. Now wasn't the time for bad memories though, now was the time to enjoy himself!

=O=

"Ugh... why me?" asked Jaune in despair before vomiting more into the trash receptacle he was at. One day, if he made a million lien, he'd create a cure for motion sickness. That was one thing that the Arc Line had been cursed with. Motion Sickness. No matter how strong the Arc, the inability to be on a V-TOL, or any dustplane for that manner would always remain.

"It'll be alright Jaune, we're nearly there already!" said Pyrrha as she rubbed his back with sympathy. Soon, ten more minutes of hell had past and they had arrived, much to Jaune's delight.

"I'll never leave you again, sweet sweet ground!" said Jaune as he collapsed onto the ground.

"You know, you'll have to get back on to get home." said Yang, earning a groan from Jaune.

"Let me have my happiness Yang!" said Jaune as he got up and they started to explore the city. It certainly was preparing for the festival, with the buildings covered in decorations and hundreds of people walking around. It certainly wasn't called a festival for nothing. After a few minutes of roaming around aimlessly, Weiss finally broke the silence.

"I heard that students from Vacou are coming from from the ships today. Let's go greet them at the docks and show them around the city. It's only the right thing to do as hosts and representatives of Beacon!" said Weiss with a smile on her face, which none of the others believed.

"So you just want to spy on them for the tournament." said Yang.

"W-What, I would never! I'm only trying to be a good host!" said Weiss, trying to defend herself.

"I have nothing better to do, let's go there. Besides, Weiss does have a small point, we should at least show them around." said Jaune, with Weiss smiling.

"Yes! We should help them around, and-" Weiss said before she was cut off by Yang.

"Spy on them." said Yang.

"You can't prove that!" Weiss said as she poorly saved it with everyone looking at her knowingly, but going with it. They walked for another minute before they reached the docks.

"Ugh, it smells like fish here. Why can't it smell like pancakes or something!" said Nora as they reached the docks.

"That's because there are fish in the sea, not pancakes Nora." said Ren in response.

"Oh yeah... We should make the ocean filled with pancakes then!" said Nora with her endless happiness.

"Maybe when you're Queen of Remnant..." said Jaune in a joking manor.

"Woah... Hey guys, take a look at this!" said Ruby as they saw a building closed off by police tape, with two detectives there looking around.

"What happened?" asked Yang in confusion as they looked at it.

"Robbery, Third Dust shop this week. This place is turning into a jungle..." said one cop with his hand in the thinking pose.

"It's horrible what people would do for money." said Ruby as she remembered her fight with Torchwick.

"They left all the lien again! They only took the Dust... It doesn't make a lick of sense! Who needs that much dust?" said the same cop.

"You thinking... White Fang?" asked the other.

"I'm thinking we're not payed enough. Let's go." said the first, leaving the two teams alone.

"Ugh... The White Fang... What an awful bunch of degenerates!" said Weiss in disgust.

"What's your problem?" asked Blake.

"I just don't care for the criminally insane." said Weiss.

"The White Fang is hardly just a bunch of psychopaths. They're just a collection of misguided faunus." said Blake in the White Fangs defense.

"Misguided?! They want to wipe humanity off the face of the planet and laugh and you call them misguided?" asked Weiss skeptically.

"Okay... they're very misguided but misguided none the less. Either way, it doesn't explain why they would rob a dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale." said Blake.

"Blake's got a point Weiss. Besides, they never caught Torchwick and he's known for robbing dust shops and leaving the lien, maybe it was him!" said Ruby, trying to calm down the storm known as Weiss.

"That doesn't change the point that the White Fang are a bunch of scum. They're just faunus who only know how to lie, cheat, steal and murder!" said Weiss with a white fire in her eyes.

"That's not necessarily true-" said Yang before she was cut off by a shout.

"Hey! Stop that Faunus!" said a voice from the pier as they saw a monkey faunus running off.

"Thanks for the ride boys, but this is my stop!" said the faunus as he jumped onto the docks and ran off, before stopping and latching onto a light posts upside down with his tail and started to eat a banana.

"You're a no good stowaway!" yelled the shipmate.

"I take offense to that! I am not a no good stowaway! If I was a no good stowaway, I would've been caught! I'm a great stowaway!" said the faunus.

"Hey, get down from there!" said the cop from before, walking towards the faunus, before he got a face full of banana peel, with the faunus laughing before jumping past them and running off, with the cops chasing him. The faunus ran their way, with the cops a good distance behind when he neared there group with Weiss angrily glaring at him, Blake looking curious and Jaune looking annoyed.

"Hey Jaune!" said the faunus as he ran past, winking at Blake before continuing to run.

"One of these days you'll get caught Sun, you know that right?" yelled Jaune back.

"But it won't be today!" said Sun as he ran around a corner, before the cops caught up to them.

"Which way did they go?" asked one, with Jaune pointing into an alleyway opposite of the one Sun ran through.

"Thanks kid!" said the other before they continued their goose chase.

"So Weiss, you wanted to see the competition... and there it goes." said Yang with a smile.

"Quick! We must observe him!" said Weiss, running after the faunus. They turned the corner and Jaune got knocked clean onto the ground, with something else hitting the ground as well.

"Ugh..." Jaune saw stars for a moment before he regained his bearings and realized something. There was a weight on him and it wasn't light.

"What happened?" said Jaune as he saw a face in front of him, earning a small shriek.

"Salutations!" said a girl on top of him, with Weiss face-palming, Ruby grinning sheepishly and Pyrrha surprisingly looking upset.

"Are you alright?" asked Jaune.

"I'm wonderful, thank you for asking!" said the voice.

"Can... you... get... off...?" asked Jaune sheepishly as he noticed their position.

"Okay!" the girl got up, and Jaune followed, dusting himself off.

"I'm Penny, it's a pleasure to meet you!" said Penny with a happy look on her face.

"I'm Jaune, nice to meet you." said Jaune.

"I'm Pyrrha, it's a pleasure." said Pyrrha with a neutral look.

"I'm Nora and this is my best friend Ren!" said Nora with enthusiasm

"I'm Ruby!" said Ruby with a happy but confused look on her face.

"I'm Weiss." said Weiss in a dignified manner.

"Blake." said Blake curtly.

"Did you hit your head- Ow, Uh. I'm Yang." said Yang as she was elbowed in the ribs by Blake.

"It's a pleasure to meet you!" said Penny.

"Didn't you just say that?" asked Weiss, which Penny looked confused for a moment before she responded.

"So I did." said Penny.

"Alrighty then, take care friend!" said Ruby.

"Sorry for running into you, I won't make it a habit!" said Jaune as the group walked away.

"Now she was... strange. Now, where did that faunus riff-raff run off to?" said Weiss, only to be surprised.

"What did you call me?" asked Penny, mysteriously appearing in front of the group, with Weiss looking back to see if there was two of her before turning around and looking at Penny.

"No, I'm sorry, I wasn't talking about-" said Weiss before she was cut off.

"No, you. You called me a friend. Am I your friend?" asked Penny, pointing at Ruby. Ruby looked at her friends. Weiss, Blake and Yang suggested no, Nora, Ren and Pyrrha suggested yes. She looked at her fellow team leader in help and got a fourth yes.

"Uh... Sure?" said Ruby, with the remainder of Team RWBY hitting the floor.

"Sen-sationable! We can try on clothes, paint our nails and talk about cute boys!" said Penny happily.

"Is that what I really sounded like?" asked Ruby, before receiving a confirmation from Weiss.

"I'd love to consider you as a friend as well Penny." said Jaune, offering his hand. Penny took a second look at him and looked very confused as she looked him over. After what seemed like a decade, she responded.

"Thank you Jaune! I would love to be friends with you! Is this what would be considered to be a boyfriend?" asked Penny in confusion, only for Pyrrha to get a bit upset, and everyone else blushing for a second.

"No... well, not yet. I'll tell you about that later. For now, let's ask a few questions. Why are you in Vale? I haven't seen you around here before." said Jaune.

"I'm participating in the tournament. I'm combat ready!" said Penny with a smile.

"You? Forgive me but you hardly look the part." said Weiss.

"Says the girl in a dress." said Blake, with Jaune and Yang chuckling at that.

"It's a combat skirt!" said Weiss, with Ruby rushing to her side, giving Weiss a high five.

"Wait... If you're participating in the tournament, do you know that faunus rapscallion from the boat?" asked Weiss.

"Who?" asked Penny in confusion.

"The filthy faunus from the boat!" said Weiss, pulling out a crude drawing out of no where, surprising everyone.

"Stop calling him that! He's a person, not a degenerate or a rapscallion!" said Blake upsetly.

"Oh, I'm sorry, would you like for me to stop referring to the trash can as a trash can or-" Weiss was cut off from her rant as Jaune put his hand on her shoulder.

"Weiss, we're friends and all but shut up for a minute. I get it that you aren't a fan of faunus, especially since the White Fang and Schnee's aren't buddies but that's a you thing. I won't stop that. What I will say is that you're sounding worse that Cardin did, and that's not a good thing. Faunus are people, just like you and me. Hell, the White Fang killed off both of my parents and one of my younger sisters, whom I loved more than life itself, when I was seven but I'm still okay with the faunus. And if I'm okay with them after that and still be friends with them without worrying if they were going to kill me, I'm sure that you can stop calling them such horrible things before you get to know them. I'll admit it, Sun is an ass and all, but it doesn't mean you can call him that. Give them a chance Weiss, and perhaps you'll find something surprising." said Jaune with a serious look on his face, with Weiss grumbling and everyone looking depressed.

"Let's go guys, Sorry for including you in that Penny." said Ruby as they walked off. Weiss glared at Blake, with her returning the glare but they chose to be silent as a result of the friendly knight turning hostile.

"So... which sister was it?" asked Ruby.

"You know, it's not a topic I like bringing up, but I'll speak. It was my second youngest sister, Glace. I didn't like talking about her, so I didn't mention it. She had beautiful white hair and white eyes and she was mute, so everyone helped her, took care of her. I loved her more than I loved my twin. One day, my parents went to visit someone important and she tagged along. They never came back. From what I know, they were shot down when they were on a dust plane. They recovered my parent's bodies, but not hers. All because of a title. So forgive me if I spoke out of term Weiss, but I don't appreciate racists, even after what a faunus has done. I guess that explains why I spoke like that before initation. I just don't like it when people are referred to by their titles, as only bad things have happened when that happens. No one takes the time to know a person, only their title." said Jaune, before walking off towards the airship.

=O=

The trip back was quiet, with the only exception being the fact that Jaune was vomiting. Soon, they returned to their dorms with Jaune receiving a few sympathetic looks before they entered their room. It was only a minute before they heard another fight break out from their rooms. Jaune was tired of it, so Pyrrha and Jaune went off to the rooftops to train.

"So Jaune, I have a question. It may not be my place to say and I'm sorry, but you aren't the best at combat. How did you get here? Is it because of your ability to kill Grimm like that?" asked Pyrrha between blows. Jaune continued as he answered.

"Oh, that's because I've had no combat training prior to this. I was going to start when my parents died, but I stopped when they died. It took a few years of grieving before I started again. I started to train on how to use my weapon when I was 15, so I've had so far 2 years." said Jaune.

"That's reasonable. I guess you don't need to be able to fight off other people when you want to solely kill Grimm. But you are learning fast I suppose, you're a good match for me now." said Pyrrha.

"Thanks Pyr, but I haven't been truthful to you. Stop for a moment." said Jaune as the duo stopped sparring.

"I'm going to say this now, so don't hate me for this, but I had to have my transcripts faked to get here. Shocker, even if you are a god at killing Grimm, you need to have a few things on transcripts before they allow you to enter. I... I had to lie about a few things on my transcript. To protect myself. Ozpin knows, he helped me enter in the information. He knows what I hide, and he knows that if anyone looked at the real me... It could put everyone in danger. I'm sorry for lying but I want to protect people. I can't sit idly while I can help people." said Jaune.

"It's alright Jaune. At least you're trying to earn your place." said Pyrrha with a smile.

"Thanks Pyr, if you want you can tell Ren and Nora, but make sure they keep their lips sealed. Maybe I'll even tell you why I needed to be here tomorrow! Now, can you please go and check up on Team RWBY for me, I have a feeling that they're having issues and I can't face them right now." said Jaune.

"Sure Jaune, but get back to our dorm room, I think Ren's making pancakes and I wouldn't mind a few. Save them for me." said Pyrrha as she walked off. As Jaune looked down onto the ground, he saw that Blake was there and she was removing her bow... revealing cat ears.

"This day keeps getting better. I better go and stop her before she does anything rash." said Jaune as he started to get up before he saw Sun there.

"Oh I definitely need to hurry up and get to them. Hopefully Lenore can hurry up and get back here, I feel like tomorrow is going to be a long day." said Jaune as he ran off to join the faunus. Today was going to be a long day...

=O=

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. A lot will be explained next chapter and we'll see Jaune's second secret! Side note though, I almost forgot to include the first one. So yeah. I hope you enjoyed, and be prepared for the monster of a chapter that will be next! Black Flames out!


	10. The Second Secret

=O=

**Chapter 10**

**The Second Secret**

"_We'll all die one day, and I personally plan to go down knees deep in my enemies blood. For Honor! For Glory! For War!" ~Henry Rabe_

=O=

All that is Gold does not Glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost,

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the Frost.

From the ashes a fire will be awoken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be the blade that was broken,

The crownless shall again be king

_**The Crownless Shall Again Be King**_

=O=

"I knew you'd look better without the bow, even after all these years." said Sun with a smile as he saw his childhood friend, Blake Belladonna in front of a statue in front of Beacon.

"So why are you out here? I'm guessing that you aren't here for the sights." said Sun nonchalantly as he warmly smiled at his friend.

"I... I may have revealed that I was a faunus to my teammates back at Beacon..." said Blake with her usual quiet demeanor.

"What's wrong with that, they seemed like nice people." said Sun.

"You may have forgotten this, but one of them is a Schnee. Next Heiress in fact, Weiss Schnee and she isn't the biggest fan of the faunus race." said Blake blatantly.

"Oh yeah... So what are you going to do?" asked Sun.

"I was thinking of leaving Beacon for a day or two and let things die down before I make a return appearance." said Blake.

"That seems pretty smart Kitty." said a voice from behind the duo. Blake turned around and saw one blonde haired goofy knight, who as of lately was getting less and less goofy.

"Jaune! Bro, how have you been doing?" said Sun, offering his fist, which Jaune then returned with a fist bump.

"I've been doing alright, I got a nice team at Beacon, learned some neat tricks and even got a nice partner, in both ways. How about you?" said Jaune.

"I've been doing well, I got a pretty cool team, even though I had to teach one of them how to be cool... It's like they didn't know cool if it hit them in the back of the head, but it's all cool in Sun Town. I'm surprised we're almost all here, if Bun was here, we'd have completed the quadfecta of friends!" said Sun as they started to walk.

"Yeah, Velvet is the only missing component, but it's better if our little rag-tag group stays incomplete for now. So Blake, where are we heading?" asked Jaune.

"I was thinking of heading to Vale, and stay there until our friends have had time to calm down, does that sound good to you two?" asked Blake.

"Sounds good to me, I've already alerted my team that I was with you, so I'm good on that regard, how about you Sun?" said Jaune as he asked the other blond in the group.

"Let's go already! My team hasn't even showed up as I'm the only one to have taken the... uh... stealth approach to get here... Yeah, stealth. Not stowing away." said Sun as he scratched the back of his head.

"Okay then... To the airship!" said Jaune as the group made their way to the airship. It was going to be a fun evening.

=O=

"Sun, have you heard of the White Fang?" asked Blake as the trio sat in a cafe. They had gone from the airship to this little cafe to settle down until it all died down, and they eventually got around to the topic of Blake's disappearance.

"Yeah, who hasn't? Every Faunus in the world knows about those crazy terrorists!" said Sun, ignoring the look Blake gave him at that comment.

"Well... I was once apart of them. You could say I was raised into it. During those times I was away from our little group of friends, I was at the front lines of the rallies against the companies who had wronged faunus. I wanted to make a difference, through peace and happiness, like my father and mother. One day, it all changed. The White Fang got a new leader, and they weren't satisfied with sitting down and asking for change. He used force to get it, and it worked. We were started to be treated as equals... but not through respect, but rather fear. One day after my partner tried to execute a group of innocent humans for simply working for a company that treated Faunus bad I simply left. I'm surprised that they haven't come after me yet, but perhaps my old partner had a change of heart and claimed me dead. I don't know. When I was leaving last night, I had just finished a conversation with Weiss Schnee, one of the White Fang's biggest targets and I may have suggested I was apart of them. And that leads us here." said Blake as the blonde duo took a spit take.

"Jeez Blake, I knew you were keeping a secret, sure I understand but this? Just don't tell me you didn't ki-" said Sun as Jaune remained silent.

"No, I left the White Fang before I had to do anything like that. I'll fight for Faunus Rights for as long as it takes, but I refuse to think that you have to kill to achieve it." said Blake.

"You were always that type of person to help others... So, what are you thinking Blake? Do you think that the White Fang is behind this?" asked Jaune who was in thought.

"No, they wouldn't rob a dust shop in broad daylight in the middle of Vale. I don't think that even if it was on the outskirts it would change anything. Besides, they've never needed that much dust before..." said Blake, recalling her previous missions with her former friends. It was a couple moments before someone came up with an idea.

"But what if they did! The only way to know is to go to where they would most likely go if they were to do it and not find them there! Right?" said Sun, surprising his companions.

"Sun, did I ever tell you how much I love that brain of yours?" said Jaune with a smile.

"The only problem is that I have no idea where that would be." said Blake.

"Well, when I was on the ship that I totally did not stow-away on, I heard news that a couple guys were going to unload a big dust shipment from Atlas at the docks." said Sun.

"How big?" asked Jaune.

"Huge. Big Schnee Company Freighter. Destroyer Class." said Sun, waving his arms in emphasis.

"Well, I guess I know how we're celebrating the end of the semester." said Jaune as they started to get up.

"It'll be just like the old times, with us cracking heads and taking names!" said Sun with a glint in his eyes.

"Sun, we never did that." said Blake bluntly.

"Not yet that is! There's always a time and place and I think we just found it. Let's play the beat up the goons game!" said Sun with a happy look on his face, with Blake sighing.

"You know, I'm as up for beating up people as you are, but there is a small problem, well two. One, we'll get in trouble if nothing happens and we're with our weapons at the docks when a dust shipment is unloading, especially since you two are faunus. Two, they won't show up if we're just sitting there. I think we need to do some stealth action." said Jaune.

"Dude. Super Secret Spying Time! A.K.A Operation SSST! Let's go!" said Sun leaving the shop happily, while Jaune payed for the trip.

=O=

"Where are they?" asked Ruby as the two incomplete teams walked down the street, looking for their friends.

"I don't know, but if those two are leaving at the same time, and no-one knows where they are, all I'm saying is that people are going to talk..." said Yang with a chuckle before Pyrrha AND Ruby punched her in the arm.

"Ow, jeez. Learn to take a joke guys..." said Yang, rubbing her arms.

"Hey, our friends are missing and you want to crack jokes? The only time for jokes is when it's all over!" said Ruby with a look that combined anger and worry.

"Do you think they're at the-" said Pyrrha before she was cut off by her scroll going off.

"Hey, it's from Jaune!" said Pyrrha as the group gathered around Pyrrha and looked at the scroll.

"Hey, this is Jaune. I'm with Blake right now, and I do indeed know that she was once apart of the White Fang, so you can stop worrying. I'm also with Sun Wukong, the monkey faunus from the docks and I can't say where we are. Think of it as a scavenger hunt, I guess. Anyways, I'll let you know in a little while where we are, so I guess you can just wait in Vale unless you feel like you need to find us ASAP, so... I'll see you soon. ~Jaune" read the message on Pyrrha's scroll.

"Do you still want to search for him or wait?" Pyrrha asked to the group of people.

"I'll still keep searching, what if they're in danger while we wait around? We can't just wait for him to give the OK, we need to get to him and figure out what's going on!" said Ruby with a smile.

"..." Weiss stayed quiet, obviously still in thought on how her friend that she had gotten to know and love had been deceiving them all to this magnitude and even if they found her, what should she do with her.

"I don't know guys, I'm all for a man-hunt, but how will we find him? We can't just search all of Vale." said Yang, scratching the back of her head in thought.

"What if we didn't need to search all of Vale. What if we only needed to go to him." said Ren, voicing his thoughts.

"What are you shooting at Ren?" asked Pyrrha.

"Well, when I first got here, I knew that it would be a major trouble keeping track of Nora, so I requested to Professor Goodwitch, and then Headmaster Ozpin that our team would get a tracking device installed on our scrolls so we could find each other. He said that it was already installed, but needed to be unlocked by a teacher, so he got Professor Goodwitch to unlock it on our scrolls, so we should be able to find Jaune via his scroll. We know that he's still at it, so why not try?" said Ren as he explained it.

"...We should've asked Professor Ozpin for that..." said Ruby in a depressed tone.

"Alright Renny! Let's find our friends!" said Nora with an upbeat attitude.

"Okay... It says they're heading this way! Let's go get them!" said Yang, before running off into that direction. Finally, only Ruby was left as she was still upset that she messed up in not asking for a tracking device, one of a hunter team's most essential items, not noticing that her friends in the two seconds that she wasn't paying attention had left her.

"Hello Ruby, where are your friends?" asked a voice. Ruby turned around and saw that her friend Penny was standing there with a confused voice.

"They're right... here?" said Ruby as she noticed that she had been left behind, leaving poor Ruby confused and shocked that they had left faster than she had noticed, and she was known for being fast!

"So what are you doing?" asked Penny.

"Well, we were looking for Jaune and Blake, cause they left last night and we're trying to find them." said Ruby.

"Oh, you mean the faunus girl and... Jaune?" said Penny after a momentary delay with a look of confusion on her face about the last part.

"But she was wearing... a bow..." said Ruby, confused that her friend had figured it out so fast.

"Are you angry that they left?" asked Penny with a confused tone.

"No Penny, I'm worried. I'm worried that my friends are going to do something dumb and they're going to get hurt. They should be alright, but I can't shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen..." said Ruby, thinking about her first two friends at Beacon.

"Well, I think we should search around the docks! That is the most likely place they would go!" said Penny with a smile on her face.

"Are you sure Penny?" asked Ruby hesitantly.

"Ab-so-lutely!" said Penny with a smile on her face.

"Then let's go!" said Ruby, who now also had a smile on her face. Little did they know that they were having more luck than Team WYPNR.

=O=

"He should be just around this corner!" said Yang as the ran down the street, not noticing the absence of the other Team Leader. The dot had been doing evasive maneuvers the whole time and it had taken a long time to just get near it. Finally, they were nearing it and it was just around the corner. It was nearly night-time since they've started their little game of chase the blonde.

"Aha Jaune, I got you... now?" said Nora as they rounded a corner and saw a scroll in the hands of an older student with a black trenchcoat, who after seeing them set it down onto the box slowly before disappearing altogether. They picked it up and saw it was the school issued one, and when they unlocked it they saw it was Jaune's. What surprised them was that there was a certain picture on it when they did unlock it.

It was a picture of Jaune and Sun showing the peace symbol, sticking out their tongues while Blake was in the background showing a peace symbol as well, but otherwise staying out of the picture, and there was a note on it.

"I'm glad to see that you used your brains, Ren, and found my scroll. It's a shame you never thought that I could just drop it. I bet that you could've used Ruby to use her speed semblance and probably run to the location I was at when I sent this message, and you probably would've caught me... BUT if you're reading this, then chances are that Ruby either didn't get to me in time or you screwed up and lost Ruby somewhere. Anyways... Now that we're done with Scavenger, you cheaters, how about a new game. This one's called Return the Scroll. Pretty self explanatory, I'm at the Docks by the way. And thanks Ange for letting me borrow your teammate, I appreciate it! Have fun!" said the message, with a winking smiley face at the end, which made the team groan. To be fair, they had managed to corner an elder student after nearly... TWO HOURS?!

"Come on! This has gone on for long enough, right Ruby?" said Yang only to turn around and notice the absence of her sister.

"WHY IS EVERYONE DISAPPEARING?!" said Yang in despair, before grabbing Weiss.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing!?" said Weiss.

"Well, I need to make sure you guys aren't going to disappear like Ruby, Blake and Jaune!" said Yang.

"Well, I think if you'll look around, you'll notice something." said Weiss. Yang looked around and noticed that they were the only ones still here.

"OH GOD DAMN IT!"

=O=

Jaune smiled as he handed of his scroll to Ange's teammate from Team CRAN (Crimson) ((I should've picked a name first before writing it...)) and smiled. He knew that his team would probably remember about the tracking feature and he was going to drop it and leave it, but it could get in the hands of the wrong people, and then Nero showed up, likely from finishing a mission with his teammates. He explained the situation and Nero smiled and agreed before running off.

"Jaune, who was that?" asked Sun interested.

"Oh, just one of my sister's teammates, they're an interesting bunch and I found the prankster of them. That should keep our teams off of us for a while. So, where to?" said Jaune as they walked towards the docks.

"Just up here, follow me." said Sun as he showed Jaune and Blake the way up to the top of a warehouse next to the pier. Soon, it became night-time and the shipment was dropped off.

"Hey guys, I stole you some food!" said Sun with a smile as he handed Blake and Jaune an apple, taking a banana for himself.

"Do you always break the law without a second thought?" asked Blake.

"Weren't you apart of a cult or something?" replied Sun, with Blake giving him a dirty look.

"He's got you there. Anyways, what's going on down there, it's been twenty minutes and I haven't seen a single worker down there. They're just leaving this giant shipment in the open, what's going on?" said Jaune, staring at the empty pier.

"This isn't right..." said Blake, agreeing with Jaune as they looked at the clearly empty dock. Suddenly, a V-TOL comes down from the sky, landing on the pier with grunts coming out with a logo of a Wolf Head covered in three scratch marks with blood.

"Oh no..." said Blake as she saw the group.

"You really didn't think it was them, did you?" said Sun.

"No... I knew it inside but I hoped it was wrong..." said Blake solemnly, before she was surprised.

"Hey, what's the hold up? We're not exactly the most inconspicuous bunch of thieves in Vale at the moment, so hurry up you animals!" said a voice. Out of the V-TOL comes an orange haired thief with a cane, more properly known as Roman Torchwick.

"This isn't right, the White Fang wouldn't work with a human, especially not someone like him." said Blake. She then jumped down and ran towards Roman with her blade unsheathed, leaving the two blondes up there.

"Sun, it's time for our special attack formation!" said Jaune with a smile.

"You don't mean..." said Sun in awe before he was cut off by Jaune.

"Yes, it's time for Codename: Shining Knight!" said Jaune as they jumped down onto the docks following Blake, who had just reached Roman.

"Brothers of the White Fang, why are you helping this criminal scum?" said Blake outloud, revealing her extra set of ears.

"Oh, didn't you get the memo kid? The White Fang and I are on a joint business venture!" said Roman with a smile.

"Tell me what it is, or I'll end this little operation!" said Blake as she held the blade closer to his neck.

"Oh, I wouldn't call it a little operation." said Roman as more and more V-TOL's showed up from the sky, distracting Blake for a second, and that was all he needed. He fired his cane onto the ground, knocking Blake away from him. Blake was about to run back in when Jaune stopped her.

"What are you-" said Blake as she tried to resist.

"Blake, I got Torchwick, go help Sun fight off the grunts. I don't have a gun so I can't help in that regard so I'm gonna go get the boss!" said Jaune with his trademark smile. Blake looked like she was going to resist for a moment but it passed and she agreed.

"Just make sure to leave a piece for me." said Blake before she joined Sun in battling the Grunts. Now was the time for the boss, Roman Torchwick.

"Leaving me all to yourself kid? I didn't know you were a coward." said Roman blatantly.

"Why is that a cowards way?" asked Jaune, caught momentarily off guard by Roman's words.

"Because Suicide is the Coward's way out!" said Roman before he ran at Jaune, using his cane as his weapon. Metal hit Metal, and so the battle began.

=O=

"Where do you think they are Penny?" asked Ruby as the duo walked through the now darkened streets.

"If my guess is correct, I believe that they are in the-" Penny's response was cut off as they heard an explosion from the docks, which was behind them.

"-the docks!" said Penny with a smile before they ran towards the docks entrance, only to be met with a problem.

"What the?!" Ruby tried to enter it, only to see that all the entrances were closed, locked tight.

"Ruby, I have an idea! Let's head to the top of that building. We will be able to get a strategic view from up there and see the situation for ourselves!" said Penny with a smile.

"Let's go!" said Ruby as she ran towards the building and fired downwards, causing her to leap all the way to the top with only a few shots, while Penny mysteriously followed her to the top at about the same speed. Ruby didn't notice how she did it, but she thought she heard gears unloading, but considered it her weapon and didn't think more into it.

Finally they reached the top and saw that there was a small scale war going on with the White Fang and Roman Torchwick fighting against Sun, Blake and Jaune, with Jaune fighting toe to toe with Roman, but was clearly outmatched. If something didn't happen, he would lose.

"Hey!" Ruby shouted at Roman, alerting him of her presence and giving Jaune a moment to breathe.

"Isn't it past your bedtime Red?" asked Roman sarcastically.

"Ruby, are these people your friends?" asked Penny.

"No, these are-" Ruby was cut off as she heard a firework head towards her, likely from Roman's cane and Ruby braced herself as she couldn't get out of the way. Only for the explosion to never hit her.

"What happened?" asked Ruby as the smoke cleared from the explosion, to reveal that a white-yellow barrier had blocked the shot, before shattering, with Penny walking towards her and the edge.

"Penny, are you prepared for combat?" asked Ruby hesitantly.

"Don't worry Ruby, I'm combat ready!"

=O=

"How dare you attack my friends!" said Jaune in anger and joy as he continued his assault on Roman, with his shield now away and in it's place a light sword. In that moment that Roman fired at Ruby, who was distracted, Jaune desperately tried to stop it. And so it stopped. He created a barrier our of aura that blocked the shot. This brought Jaune joy to no extent but anger that Roman DARED to attack his friend while they were distracted. He managed to control his aura into a sword, with another decent chunk of his aura taken out.

"_Faster! Faster! FASTER!" _thought Jaune as he hit Roman's cane again and again. He couldn't win if he couldn't land a hit and unless he got faster, he couldn't win. Jaune's strikes got more and more quick, making Roman have to dodge more and more until he was completely on the defense and not even his shots could stop it.

"_I can do this! I can win! I CAN-" _Jaune's triumphant thoughts disappeared as his aura sword disappeared from his hand, making him trip as the velocity carried through and it hit nothing to stop him, making him land onto the cold ground.

"Your time is up kid, sorry it has to end this way." said Roman coldly as Jaune flipped onto his back, only to be stepped on and his rocket cane aimed at his chest. To his right, Blake and Sun were slowly being overwhelmed while Ruby and Penny were holding off the army of White Fang grunts as more and more ships appeared. On his left, the remainder of the two teams joined the fray, only to be met with a solid wall of White Fang. This wasn't good. If he lost, they all lose!

"Kid, here's a thing you should know. Not all stories have a happy ending." said Roman as he started to pull the trigger of his weapon. Jaune tried to pull his aura to create a barrier, only to be met with a sick fact.

He was out of Aura.

"And so ends this story!" said Roman as he pulled the trigger. What followed as an explosion, unholy pain in his whole body and finally nothing.

=O=

"JAUNE NO!" Pyrrha came to the battlefield to see Jaune fighting with an aura blade as well as his blade. At first, she thought it was fine until the blade evaporated in the midst of an attack, leaving Jaune defenseless as he landed onto the ground while Roman pulled his cane to his chest. After a moment, he pulled the trigger and blood splattered everywhere.

"JAUNE!" The rest of the group noticed Jaune's status and called out to him, for him to not even twitch in recognition. She managed to get through the White Fang's line with Yang's help and ran to Jaune's side, checking him. It wasn't good.

"Jaune! Stay with me!" said Pyrrha, desperately trying to feel for a pulse on his neck as the battle raged on around her, with the White Fang surprisingly staying away from her while Roman fought Ruby.

"Come on Jaune, you've been through worse!" said Pyrrha as she felt no pulse and looked at the damage that was on Jaune's chest, only to see the things of her nightmares.

His chest had caved in from the attack, but that wasn't the part that shocked Pyrrha the most. Nor was the part in which most of his organs had been severely damaged if not destroyed outright from the explosion. It was the fact that his blood ran black.

=O=

"Ugh... Where am I?" said Jaune as he got up from the fluffy floor he was on, with a horrible feeling in his chest. He then noticed that he had three people in front of him.

"Hey silly, I'm glad you're awake now. You took quite the hit!" said a feminine voice. In front of him was a woman that looked only a little bit older than he was, with black hair and blue highlights, with a bow on her back and silver armor covering her but not enough to restrict movement. Behind her was a man with a scythe and a black cloak while the third had black hair and looked of Eastern Descent.

"Where am I?" asked Jaune.

"Oh, you're in purgatory!" said the voice, causing Jaune to sweatdrop.

"You don't mean Purgatory as in Heaven or Hell, do you?" asked Jaune hesitantly.

"Yep! You died to Roman Torchwick. Criminal Extrordinare! You probably should not have relied on your aura blade that much since you just learn how to use it." said the voice, causing Jaune to feel a little bit guilty as it struck true.

"Uh... I'm sorry to ask, but who are you?" asked Jaune.

"Oh, I'm Stella, Goddess of Life. The boring looking fellow in the cloak is Mors, the Grim Reaper, and the man behind both of us is like Super God! Meet the one and only Monty Oum!

"Greetings Arc." said Mors blatantly.

"Jaune! It is a pleasure to meet you, my friend!" said Monty Oum with a smile.

"Uh... Hi?" said Jaune as he saw the three revered gods of Life, Death and the Universe.

"Don't worry Jaune, they're just here for show. What I need you to focus on is me. Now, do you have any questions?" asked Stella.

"Are my friends going to be okay?" asked Jaune hesitantly.

"Sure, right now they're facing off against the White Fang trying to avenge you, but I wouldn't put any bets on them living to the end at this rate." said Stella.

"Please tell me you can stop this! Please! I'll do anything! Just don't let them die because of me and my inability to defeat Roman!" said Jaune, begging on his knees.

"Don't worry Jaune, We as the three elder gods have decided to give you a choice. You can give up your memories forever and save your friends... for now, or keep them and let everyone die. What is your-" said Stella before she was cut off.

"I choose to lose my memories!" said Jaune without hesitation.

"Are you sure? Can you handle losing your only friends?" asked Stella.

"Of course! I couldn't live with myself, pardon the life part, if I let everyone die because of my selfishness!" said Jaune.

"Excellent, you passed the final test!" said Stella, confusing Jaune.

"What do you mean Final Test?" asked Jaune.

"Even though I was sure that you would be alright in coming back, Mors had second thoughts and decided to test if you deserved to come back. So we came up with this test, and now that this is out of the way since he clearly is of virtuous heart and mind, I think we can break the rules and let you come back to life in your old body, healed of course and with your memories intact!" said Stella.

"Really? Thank you!" said Jaune happily.

"In fact, you're not leaving without a gift. I don't want to see you back here before your time is up, nor do I want to see the same boring world from up here so I'm coming with you! This is my symbol, a star **(1)**use it and I'll help you when you need it most!" said Stella happily.

"Are you sure that you can-" said Jaune before he was cut off.

"I'm sure that Mors can handle my duty for a few centuries, right Mors?" said Stella, with Mors grumbling about something involving a bratty deity.

"Let's go Jaune!" said Stella happily.

=O=

Pyrrha was fighting with Roman Torchwick as her friends fought nearby against the White Fang. Penny had used an attack that destroyed quite a few V-TOLs but it wasn't enough to stop them and more and more grunts were coming and they could only last for so long.

"What's wrong Miss Invincible?" asked Roman tauntingly. Even with her semblance, it wasn't going anywhere and about a minute ago, a woman with black wings flew in and checked on Jaune, before joining the fight against the White Fang, seriously damaging the lines, flinging her feathers like projectiles and using a katana to attack. The worst part? Every time they managed to land a hit on the grunts, 9 out of the 10 times, they'd simply shatter like glass before another one took it's place. They were going to lose. She heard that the Vale Police had finally showed up but they fared no better results.

"You're dead!" said Pyrrha as she attempted to land yet another hit on Roman, only for this time a bright light to appear from behind her, with the light covering Jaune. After a minute, the light faded and Jaune was standing with his armor repaired and even upgraded to cover more of his body and his left eye was silver. This day was getting stranger by the minute...

=O=

"I'm back!" exclaimed Jaune as he held the Star Symbol in his hand, with Stella still in his ear.

"_Put me into your shield, I want to show you a neat trick!_" said Stella. Jaune obliged and inserted the Star onto his shield, for it to mecha-shift into a bow, not unlike Stella's. It as silver and yellow, with the Arc Family symbol on it.

"_Here, I'll lend you some of my aura, use this aura to make an arrow!" _said Stella as Jaune felt his aura surge from the sudden increase. He did as Stella told and used it to make an arrow, which felt powerful from simply holding it, before drawing it and aiming for the airship.

"_Fire it at it and watch the fireworks!" _said Stella excitedly, and Jaune obliged. An arrow of light came from the bow at breakneck speeds, draining almost all the aura he had gotten from Stella. It fired through a V-TOL without even slowing before the V-TOL exploded with it's inhabitants making their way out before it exploded in a flash of light before another flash of light came from the air as the arrow exploded as well.

"Stella! How much power was that?!" asked Jaune as he saw the carnage.

"_That was a percentage, barely one at that. Now, go fight Torchwick. I'm not going to help unless you get yourself hurt." _said Stella lazily. Jaune started to make his way towards Roman, only for Roman to shatter as well as the rest of the White Fang that were standing with only a few lying on the ground.

"Huh..." said Jaune as he saw an airship fly away. It wasn't worth making another arrow as knowing him, he'd likely miss and his some poor ship, blowing it up and he wasn't confident in his skill.

"_It seems that you won! Congrats... but not really, that was all me! Now, you can keep the Symbol, and this form of your shield BUUUT I'm absolutely going to go and enjoy the sights of Vytal! I'm taking my Uber Arrows with me! You can still call for me, and I'll answer, but I'm not going to help you too much. That would be cheating." _said Stella's voice with a hint of happiness before it left and the star lost much of it's shine.

"Wait- Aw..." said Jaune in disappointment as Stella left, likely materializing somewhere else. But now, he had something more to worry about.

"JAUNE!" said Pyrrha and Ruby, crushing him in a hug. Suddenly the exhaustion from almost dying and using God's power overwhelmed him and he was helpless as the redheads likely cracked his ribs from the squeezing.

"I thought you were... I thought..." said Ruby before she started to cry.

"Don't you ever do something like that again!" said Pyrrha, with tears in her eyes.

"I'm alright now guys, I just had some help. Don't worry." After a few minutes, the group separated the two from Jaune, giving him some breathing room.

"Jaune, what was that?" asked Yang interestedly.

"I have no idea Yang." said Jaune bluntly, with the group sweatdropping at that.

"Jaune, you bled black? What was up with that?" asked Pyrrha interestedly.

"Damn... I was hoping you wouldn't notice that... Lenore! Come here!" said Jaune, and the woman with black wings came as Jaune called her. The group then took a good look at Lenore. She had big black wings, a small katana, some traditional robes with armor plates on at various locations and had a helmet that looked like a Grimm mask, and had red eyes.

"Damn it Lenore, you look like a nerd... Anyways, tell Ozpin that it's time that Team RWBY and JNPR know the second secret." said Jaune.

"Of course, I will report to you back soon. And you can't tell me how to were wear my armor!" said Lenore before flying away.

"Now for you, do me a favor and let's head to Beacon. It's time to go home. You better go talk with Headmaster Ozpin, he'll answer your questions while I'm going to go take a nap. I've spent enough energy here to kill me twice over..." said Jaune as the duo made their way to the airship.

=O=

"I see that you've discovered Mr. Arc's secret..." said Professor Ozpin who was sitting in his chair with Professor Goodwitch and Oobleck standing to his side.

"Yeah, he was bleeding black instead of red, what was up with that?" asked Yang.

"I suppose just asking you to not talk about it won't be enough... Very well, before we begin I must tell you this. Should you speak of what you hear here to anyone, I will expel you from Beacon and claim that you are mentally ill. No Hunter's school will accept you and no-one will believe anything you say. You will be ruined, and there is nothing you can do about it. If you listen to me and do as I say, this will not happen. Am I clear?" asked the Headmaster, which was followed by a few nods.

"Let's begin, Professor Oobleck, if you will." said Professor Ozpin, putting the green haired professor on the spot.

"Alright. Let me tell you a few facts. Grimm are mindless beasts. Humanity and the Faunus are the only intelligent life forms on Remnant. Julius Arc won both the Faunus War for Humanity and the Darkness War as well. Humanity is going to win the war against Grimm. Are we clear that these are the facts that we know?" asked the professor to which everyone nodded.

"Well then, I'm afraid I just spoke a lie. All of what I said is false. Let me begin. In the beginning, there was Monty Oum, the creator. Next, he created the two gods of life and death, Stella and Mors. Then, the two younger gods created to species each to act as their pawns in a battle. Stella created Humans and Faunus. Mors created the Grimm and the Oni." said the Professor, shocking everyone.

"What are the Oni?" asked Ruby, only to be shushed as Professor Goodwitch slapped her riding crop down, silencing everyone.

"As I was saying, after the four races were created, mind you that the Grimm during that time had a more human look, as very little could differentiate the two, the groups went to war. The Human and Faunus found the power of aura, and the Oni and Grimm found something else entirely. They found the way of transformation. And so the Grimm could turn from their Human forms, to a Grimm form, to even an enlightened form if practiced enough where it's similar to a Grimm form, only smaller and white instead of black but much more powerful and even the ability to combine with the Oni momentarily to shred through anything that gets in their way, but it will show in their eyes. They are the gateway to the soul after all. They will need a symbol of the pairing, to prove that they are one and then they can transform. However, Grimm will stay as the same beasts we know and love until an Uni comes along. Also, our studies have been unfruitful in detecting a soul in a Grimm because Grimm don't have an aura and that's what we test for most of the time. That is why it is a popular myth that Grimm don't have a soul, because they have no aura and so far, everything that has had a soul has aura. Fortunately for Grimm, they have a type of dark aura that is undetectable by almost any standard but it cannot protect them as well as an Uni can share it's aura with them and vice versa." said the Professor as the teams remembered the match against Cardin when his eye turned black and earlier when it turned silver.

"And so 500 years ago, the Great War occurred, with countless tragedies. It might have killed of both races, but Julius Arc, head of the Oni clan, called for a ceasefire. Soon, everything was at peace and everyone was satisfied. Soon there was a time of peace in which the Oni and Grimm were openly peaceful with the Human and Faunus could be with each other and there would be no conflict." said Professor Oobleck

"What happened next?" asked Ruby curiously.

"Finally, the human leaders got jealous of the fact that they were now the weakest group altogether, as they had shared the secret of Aura to the other groups, so they came up with a plan. One day, during a day of relative peace when the Oni Population numbered in the millions, there was an attack. The Humans had discovered dust and used it in large concentration and wiped out the Oni. Well, that would be true if it were not for the one of the faunus family, the rabbit faunus intervening. They overheard the plan to kill the Oni and warned them. By the time that news reached, it was too late however and millions upon millions died. Fortunately, one hundred Oni survived with their Grimm counterparts. They managed to escape where many did not. The Oni were grateful and invited the faunus to live with them, especially the rabbit and many families did. The ones that stayed behind were labeled traitors and soon another war occurred by the humans." said the history professor with a foul look in his eyes as he worded the sins.

"The Faunus fought against the Humans and the Faunus would've lost if it were not for Julius Arc. You see, he felt guilty that as a result of him, many innocent faunus died to them, so Julius fought for the faunus. This is where he activated the Third Trumpcard. This alone sealed the war for the faunus and humans and the Grimm were soon sent into the mix, creating chaos and ending the war before there was a genocide. Unfortunately, Julius was unable to stop his Trumpcard and it followed him to his grave. Another poor consequence is that the Grimm started to attack the Faunus outside of the Oni Sanctuary. This leads us to modern day. Now, I think I've answered all the questions you need to know about, but in case you weren't paying attention I will sum it down." said Professor Oobleck

"1) There are Four Races on Remnant, and the Oni are one of them. They were created by the same being who created Grimm. 2) They can bond with the Grimm. 3) Jaune Arc is one of them. 4) Grimm are not mindless and indeed have souls. 5) The Oni and Faunus have a special connection. That should be all, any questions?

"What is the Third Trumpcard?" asked Yang curiously.

"I'm afraid I cannot say Ms. Xiao Long. All I can say is that it does have power. Please, you've spent enough time worrying about what this is, head back to your dorms. We will call you again soon. Goodbye." said the Professor ushering them out of the room.

=O=

"So Jaune, is what the Professor said true?" asked Pyrrha as they came to the Team JNPR dorm room with Jaune sitting down on his bed waiting for them.

"Yeah... I hope you don't think of me as some sort of horrid monster..." said Jaune depressed.

"Hey, no matter what you are, you will always be our friend." said Ruby, making Jaune smile.

"We'll be with you no matter what Jaune, that's what friends do." said Blake, who was smiling.

"Thanks guys, I don't deserve friends like you." said Jaune with a pitiful smile.

"Of course you do. I think that you need cheering up and there's always something that makes me smile. Let's play World of Remnant! I found the 8 player version!" said Ruby with a smile, with the group leaving. This was going to be a fun second semester...

=O=

"So you're leaving?" asked Jaune as he saw Stella walking away from Beacon. It had been a few days since the attack and now it seems that Stella was bored of the school life.

"Yep! I'm gonna go see the world from a mortals perspective. Perhaps it'll change a few things! See ya around. Don't forget to use that Symbol to call me!" said Stella before walking away, with Jaune smiling. It seems that even immortals needed breaks.

=O=

"Look Weiss, I'm sorry for deceiving you and I'm glad to inform you I'm no longer associated with the White-" said Blake before she was cut off.

"Look, Blake. I get it. I'm sorry for being such a racist. I didn't know that you were a faunus or how they were treated. I'll treat them with more respect but right now I'm feeling tired from all that's happened today, good night Blake." said Weiss before flopping unrefinedly onto her bed, causing Blake to smile. It seems that she had found a new friend.

=O=

"Pyrrha, I need to speak with you. Thank you for being there, I understand that you might be upset with me, but thank you for helping me!" said Jaune with a smile. It had been a few hours since the group game that they played that Pyrrha surprisingly won and Jaune had to thank his partner. Without her, he might have taken a darker path...

"It was no problem Jaune, I was glad to help you perform better." said Pyrrha with a smile.

"I remember a little about when I died there, I'm glad you worried for me, even now. I'm glad, really. glad that you are my partner!" said Jaune with a smile on his face.

"Of course Jaune, I'd do it again in a heart beat." said Pyrrha, before giving Jaune a quick peck on the cheeks before walking off, leaving Jaune and Pyrrha blushing with one question on their mind. What just happened?

=O=

Hey guys, **RWBYBlackFlames** here and I'm glad to say that Chapter 10 AND the Season 1 Finale... or recap... meh, is over! The Second Secret is revealed! Jaune Arc is part Grimm. That's all you need to know right now. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I just want to say there were exactly 61 hints hinting at what Jaune might have been in the past 9 chapters. Just saying. Also, this chapter was originally much longer and had a lot more spoiler for what's to come, but I changed that. So yeah. It should do a lot of explaining. For example, Jaune knew that something was off with Cardin as he didn't sense negativity in him, since he can sense negativity. I think I'm done.

**(1)** Look at the Nether Star from Minecraft. It is that.

And I made an OC Team for this... I just made the mistake of creating their names before the Team name... Yeah... CRAN sucks... Meh.

I'm sorry if you feel that the ending was a bit rushed, I just needed to end the Arc and solve as many questions as I can, as well as start off that #arkos. I'm leaving this story alone for a week or two and work on other things so I need this out of the way. Sorry

Finally, This is a Sister Story to Arc Angel. One Jaune is an Angel, the other is a Devil. Yeah. I hope you enjoy! Black Flames out!


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